How Disney Commodifies Culture - Southeast Asians Roast Raya and the Last Dragon (Part 2)

Part 1: • How Disney Commodifies...
Culture: 0:00:00-0:08:24
Fighting & Weapons: 0:08:24-0:31:05
Languages: 0:31:05-0:40:38
Food: 0:40:38-1:06:10
Fashion: 1:06:10-1:56:11
Conclusion: 1:56:11-1:56:52
Folder with all presentation slides: drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Culture Presentation
Slides by Stephani Soejono, Mars/Marissa Irene, Jes & Cin Wibowo, Serat, dangerouscolors
presented by Jes & Cin Wibowo, Serat, and Stephani Soejono
Fighting and Weapons
Presentation by Serat and Florp
Languages Presentation
Slides by IslandBard and Violeta
Memes by Vu
Presented by Victor Long Hua
Food Presentation
Slides by Jes & Cin Wibowo, @alexhawthornes, Azrael, Science/Erin, @Xara, @SekHanFoo, and Tran
Presented by Stephani Soejono and Serenity
Fashion Presentation
Slides by Tran, AC, Jes & Cin Wibowo, Serat, Stephani Soejono, VieN, Sylanc
Presented by Tran
Queer Subtext Presentation
Slides by Jes & Cin Wibowo, Lune, anonymous Singaporean
Title slide by Tran
Presented by Jes & Cin Wibowo, Lune
Closed Captions
By Lune, Serat, Jes & Cin Wibowo
Overall Credits List + Socials
Audris / Serat (@audriserat)
Jes & Cin Wibowo (@jesncin)
AC
Azrael
Florp
IslandBard (@kidulwarlock)
Jo
Lune (@Lune_Lys)
Mars/Marissa Irene (@Mars_Irene)
SekHanFoo
Serenity (@andatsofthefall)
Stephani Soejono (@stephanisoejono)
Sylanc
Tran Nguyen (@localtiredviet)
Victor (@somelongguy)
VieN (@comicsbyvien)
Violeta (@LeDieuHuong1)
Vu (@BitchassMc)
Xara
alexhawthornes
dangerouscolors
k0ks3nw4i
obaewankaenobi
somelongguy
Witchtimez (@witchtimez)
Artists:
Language section -
@Khessamaya: / 1368256926555852800
Fashion section -
@viv_url: / viv_url
@nakrobmoon (Instagram): nakrobmoon...
Ấm Chè (Facebook): / warm21
Holy Dragon Imperator/Long Thần Tướng by Nguyen Khanh Duong (Author), Nguyen Thanh Phong (Illustrator), Nguyen My Anh (Illustrator), Tran Quang Duc (Foreword)
**All proceeds from this series will be donated to Southeast Asian charities! Here are some you can support as well:
- New Naratif: Journalism site that aims to make news on SEA issues accessible newnaratif.com/donate/
- Tabung Pelangi: A Malaysian queer initiative to provide binders to the youth tabungpelangi.carrd.co/
- LBH Jakarta: Human Rights Organization in Indonesia defending people against governmental policies bantuanhukum.or.id/
- The T Project: Trans shelter & organization in Singapore www.thetprojectsg.org/
- Oogachaga: One of Singapore's longest running LGBT+ organizations that's been helping and counselling SG's queer community since 1999 oogachaga.com/
- Sayoni: Singapore-based feminist, volunteer-run organization that works to uphold human rights protections for queer women www.sayoni.com/
- Project X: Singapore sex work advocacy group who work with and for migrant sex workers from the region
- ISee: Vietnamese organization that advocates for LGBT and minority culture rights in Vietnam www.isee.org.vn/
ICS: Another Vietnamese LGBTI+ organization ics.org.vn/sponsor-us
- Kaya Natin: Philippine-based non-profit for good governance and ethical leadership, initiatives include leadership development programs for the youth, efforts to educate the public on empowered participation in government, and relief operations in times of crisis www.kayanatin.ph/donate/
www.wesign.it/en/internationa...
This is a petition in support for the victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam. As far as I know there’s no fundraising needed, but they’re in desperate need of more support and visibility! Tran To Nga is the Vietnamese woman who is fighting the French businesses who gave Agent Orange to the USA during the war, since the American court won’t accept the case. It’s our only chance to have this crime punished! Last May French courts declared this a non-case but Tran To Nga announced she’d make an appeal. She’s been fighting in the French court of Evry since 2014!

[@oberonpolaris8834]

There are some people in the comments who are begging the question, If this is a children's movie, why should it be analyzed? Yes, it may be so, but their argument is to refute, not only the plot, but how they market the movie through the plot which is... needless to say, possesses dubious representations and references which are diced up or completely glazed over. I understand how it may appear that this isn't worth analyzing for you, but for many of those who live in Southeast Asia, Disney is completely disregarding just how much they failed to deliver in terms of world building inspired by our culture. Culture is comprehensive, spanning over centuries of our history, and to portray it is no doubt difficult, but in this context, Disney almost did not bat an eye to the cultural symbolism of the things they decided to extract and choose to go into Raya (i.e. the spiritual connotation towards our weapons and martial arts, and many more!), but nevertheless, advertises Raya and the Last Dragon as "accurate" representation of Southeast-Asian cultures which is shown in this video to be a faaaaar reach on their part. There is also in general, the importance of representation that Disney so shamefully prides themselves on. In media, it is rare to see our countries represented as it is for say for those typically western. Raya is not the first movie to claim it's "100% reliable portrayal of Asian cultures", and fall flat. I am a Filipino who practiced Arnis, so to see Raya using it was a joy (despite it's briefness). It may not appear important to those who are outsiders to our culture, but it really really is to us. So for Disney to simply pick out things from our culture like they do clothes so frivolously, without understanding the basis and the true symbolism of each practice, THEN to proceed to market it as accurate can be disheartening for viewers who sought to see themselves and their culture rightfully represented in the movie. On a lighter note, thank you a lot Discord Server and Jay for this video! I'm not as in touch with the culture of my country and our neighboring countries as a Filipino, so this was a good way for me to explore that side of our part of the world even just a little better : D Thank you a lot

[@civilengineer3349]

I think its fun to analyze a children's movie. Also, a children's movie will teach a child something. I can understand why a SEA person will want to analyze a movie that teaches a child about SEA

[@victoriascott3137]

@@alices8660 Disney and multiple big name's like Time called Raya the first South East Asian princess so to call her anything but is like saying Moana isn't a Polynesian princess. Also in the first part they do give references of where Disney promised to honor and be accurate to the culture. Also Ecantos cast and crew where mainly Colombian or of Colombian descent and yes while it probably isn't 100% accurate it was at least 2/3rds, as said by many Colombians, meanwhile as shown Raya doesn't even seem to be a 10th accurate to SEA.

[@NathanWubs]

@@alices8660 Looks it's an account just made to troll and to argue in bad faith. Nothing to see here people, just ignore the rambling from Alice, as even if you get sources that say that it's South East Asian, then they will claim. Ahh....but.... you .... see that is still not 100%

[@oberonpolaris8834]

@@alices8660 I'd like to apologize upfront as there hasn't been any true statements of Disney stating that it is completely accurate. I simply got that notion from the community and how some were receptive towards it. My first statement is not completely fact checked, which is my own mistake and I am very sorry for it, and it was a result of my being ticked off from someone in the comments section who remarked something against the purpose of the video which was to educate and bring to light parts of SEA culture that Disney misinterpreted. Though my opinion on representation being of importance should still stand, I want to edit/rephrase my main statement so as to not unnecessarily slander Disney over something they actually didn't do. Unless someone in the comments finds proof of otherwise, I'll edit this. I appreciate the criticism, guys, I apologize for being careless in my approach.

[@oberonpolaris8834]

​@@NathanWubs Well, Alice rightfully is allowed an opinion on this, so I wouldn't say they're a troll. Just because someone contradicts or proposes an opposing idea doesn't make them exactly wrong. It simply means they're seeing it from a different pov which allows us to judge and make statements of. I was wrong in my complete affirmances in the fact that Disney said that it was 100% accurate, but I will have to stand against Alice on how they said that there's nothing wrong with borrowing things from culture. Raya and The Last Dragon is based on SEA Culture, and whilst there's nothing inherently wrong with being inspired by the cultures of the world and using them as base tools in world building, Disney must still pay homage and right respect to the actual connotations and practices of the culture they are representing in a movie. No matter how little, each culture should be respected on a base level because otherwise it's plain ignorance. That's the thing that ticks me off from this movie is that they picked and decided which parts of Thai or Malaysian or Filipino (and many others) practices they would use and represent, yet the importance and symbolism of each culture is negated or completely glazed over. It seems hollow, the representation, in that regard.

[@cheezemonkeyeater]

"They're clearly gods, but they're treated as celebrities and their objects of worship are treated as merchandise." I think it's because the only kind of worship Hollywood understands is celebrity worship.

[@randompromises1038]

it's so common for celebrities to be treated as little more than dolls that get played around with and discarded that even the JOKE of celebrities being treated like that is cliche and predictable

[@thisisapictureofmydog.isnt9208]

yeah that or scientology lol

[@cheezemonkeyeater]

@@thisisapictureofmydog.isnt9208 Same thing, really.

[@tempesttossed6029]

facts

[@carolinem.6747]

ooh savage! but true lol

[@user-ewhite]

1:03:32 I think Sisu's reaction was meant to show that SEA food is spicy and they needed someone to provide a reaction, but I think it would've been better if Sisu is instead complaining that the food is NOT spicy enough and dumps more sambal/raw peppers into it. Like it would be interesting if she was like "Did the chilis stop growing when we dragons were gone??? Why is this so bland?" Raya: We... already put chili/sambal in it Sisu: NOOOO not enough

[@johannesseyfried7933]

Oh! That would have been *very* fun. 😄😆

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

It seems like it would make more sense.

[@gamewrit0058]

You fixed it! Yay!

[@datpotat3945]

Sisu's reaction to the spicyness was so stereotypically western that it made me roll my eyes. Would've been so much better this way.

[@tk-wq7ij]

Agree! A lot of adults around me (I'm SEAsian) would ask for some chilis and eat them raw as some kinds of side dish if the food wasn't spicy enough to their likings.

[@justanotherrandomchannel6981]

I'm a Malaysian with the worst tolerance for spicy food, but when I found out the movie presented sambal as "disgusting and too spicy", I screamed "HOW DARE YOU!" because people love this stuff in my country and even though I'll never eat it, I won't allow unfounded hatred of sambal or any other spicy dish in Malaysia.

[@lykacaibigan7977]

I feel you there. I'm Filipino and I'm very weak to spice but I know people who love spicy food and even if the food is spicy, it still taste good (if I ignore spice enough).

[@zekedone1845]

My taste-buds that has near to non-existant spice tolerance to spicy food that makes my ancestors cry got offended when she said that lol

[@CompSomAnichi]

@@lykacaibigan7977 I agree with OP. Can’t take spice either - I won’t be able to eat Bicol Express, but won’t stand slander for it. 😤

[@jeanjun8425]

I'm east asian, not very good with spicy food but I love sambal! Delicious!

[@afa1473]

Samee! I'm indonesian and no meal is complete without sambal over here, there is also chain restaurants here that sells over 30 variations of sambal, and let me tell you it is packed every single lunch time, we love sambal!

[@tinymxnticore]

I actually grew up Christian and I heard a lot of people call themselves a “Jesus Nerd”. The conflation of fandom and spirituality is pretty common with American white people…even more so when it comes to religions they’re ignorant about. This is NOT an excuse for the “dragon nerd line,” I think it actually shows how the writers essentially wrote a Western story with SEA aesthetics.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

In a better movie, this would be a clever bit of dialogue. Namaari's the one who calls herself a "dragon nerd" before betraying Raya. Because "dragon nerd" sounds like something only a totally out-of-touch fake worshipper would call herself, it should be foreshadowing for Namaari's duplicitous nature. But because this movie is as incompetent as it is, we know that *actually* it's the screenwriters who are out-of-touch.

[@marinaechelon210]

I think this association with fandom and religion must vary from place to place. I am from Brazil, one of the biggest christian countries out there. I can't begin to describe how offensive it would be for my catholic grandma if someone would call themselves Jesus nerd (and I am atheist, I do this jokes with other atheist friends, BUT NEVER in front of the people who consider this sacred). And we have the other, the bigger problem: Christianity was a weapon of colonization here. If you take a religion that was marginalized (which are many) and treat it as something "trendy", it is incredibly disrespectful of their history, legacy and fight to keep their beliefs despite the colonial aggression. We have so many people that partake in some rituals from umbanda and candomblé (religions tied to the african cultures brought here) and have absolutely no respect for them most of the time. If this is a problema within the communities in one country, imagine reinforcing to the whole world that you can treat a marginalized religion and/or spirituality as a fandom, a trend. When I see something like this, it baffles me. People are killed for practing certains beliefs that goes against colonial christian values here. This is such a serious matter, it pains me to see how little effort and attention they paid to it. (Sorry if it sounded like I'm disagreeing with your comment, just pointing something out in my experience as a Brazilian to enrich the discussion. Hope that I didn't come across as rude. If so, I apologize)

[@harmonium5495]

To me that's pretty weird. As an American white person who grew up in a Christian household, no one would _ever_ call themselves a "Jesus nerd" at home, some of my current friends would consider it disrespectful even.

[@LaneMaxfield]

So, I grew up with the kinds of Christian homeschoolers who genuinely thought the reason atheism/secularism/multiculturalism was on the rise (those are all the same thing to that particular community) was that Christianity wasn't "cool" enough. So they made a bunch of cringey pop culture that was trying too hard to be superficially cool, including a rap group called DC Talk that literally had a whole album called "Jesus Freak," which basically gives me the same vibes as "dragon nerd." As a result, I've had these old, awkward as hell songs stuck in my head while watching this whole thing... I doubt that was what they were going for when they wrote the line but that's where my head goes

[@yanni9922]

I’ve never heard any white American call themselves a “Jesus nerd” especially in my family. That is actually pretty disrespectful but I ain’t denying it if you experienced it 😭

[@mariam19554]

The fact that ALLLLLL this information is willingly given away for FREE astonishes me, there is absolutely no excuse for Disney for their disgusting lack of research

[@_ranituran3161]

E. X. A. C. T. L. Y

[@quietrioter]

There is a excuse: can't make China mad.

[@dodixaverius9176]

I do remember back then, one of the researcher that they hired specifically for Indonesia, was a woman whose credibility was questioned and a lot of scandal regarding her happened back then. Suffice to say, may expection dropped from low to zero after I know who is the freelance researcher they hired for the movie. Yes she might not ended up making much contribution in the end, but the fact that disney knowingly chose to hire that person, convince me that this film is not making due diligence in even researching the culture.

[@StarlightPrism]

Some of the concept art shows more culturally accurate stuff which makes me wonder if the production started out with more intent to be accurate, but then got meddled with for the sake of being more appealing to western audiences.

[@medtle1]

@@StarlightPrism What happened to Raya and the Last dragon is probably similar to what happened to Brave and Bojack Horseman. The Southeast Asian people involved in the movie probably tried to make it as authentic as possible, but then got (constantly) pressured by the non-SE-Asian executives, producers, and staff to make it more "palatable" to non-SE-Asian people. [Unlike with Moana and Encanto, there wasn't enough SE-Asian voices to counter all of the non-SE-Asian voices trying to change the movie. Even Moana got criticized by Pacific Islander communities and there was more effort put in that movie than in Raya and the Last Dragon.] Brave was a completely different movie when the person who thought of the story left the project (and it shows). One of the creators of Bojack Horseman admitted that not hiring a Vietnamese woman to voice Diana was a huge mistake that led to a lot more mistakes and difficulties than he and his writing staff anticipated. One of the people that work on Encanto revealed that they had to fight for Luisa to have muscles (even though she's the character with super strength and is not a child), so I suspect there was a lot of executive meddling involved in Raya and the Last Dragon.

[@erikoftheinternet]

"The filmakers travelled to do background research" is code for "we convinced the producers to set aside budget for us to take a free vacation". They probably spent most of their time at restaurants and doing tours. The big red flag is that the cultural aspect that got the most representation was pictures of food that vaguely resemble some southeast asian dishes. It also explains why so many things (spiritual objects, building designs) got dropped into the movie aesthetically completely separated from the context of what they actually are.

[@Rakerong]

Yeah. Any basic research would have explained a lot of what they were going for and be used in a proper manner. That, or they chose to ignore it for the sake of 'it'll look cooler' which is even worse.

[@icecreamhero2375]

No,its common for animated movies to do that. They send the animators out to a location and they draw what they see and stuff like that. For example, during the making Toy Story 3 they sent the animators to an actual Dump for authenticity. The representation was pretty bad but benefit of the doubt.

[@xLolwat]

I mean Coco's team also travelled to do research and look how THAT movie turned out - I can't help but think Raya simply wasn't given enough importance, either by the higher ups or both higher ups and the team themselves :/ As an artist myself travelling to see things in person is extremely valuable, so it hurts not seeing anything used correctly this time around. Even Luca did a better use of its teams' travels, which is IMMEDIATELY evident when you look at the places they went to vs the movie. Raya's situation is honestly baffling and saddening. I'm still extremely disappointed by it.

[@Rakerong]

@@xLolwat It's one of those things that got immense backlash because it created those situations in the first place. The animated Mulan movie was far from culturally accurate, but the movie didn't present itself as anything other than their take on the ballad of Hua Mulan. The live action, however...every time they tried to hype it up and make it seem like it was realistic and accurate and more than what we expect, it severely hurt its reputation as we see how laughably bad and off putting it turned out. It didn't succeed in any way for fans of the original, as an action movie for HK martial arts films, or even resonate with audiences in China. Raya just should have done their usual thing and made a fun movie using SEA influences. We'd roll our eyes over accuracy, but it'd be more like, "Bless Disney, they tried" and still enjoy the movie. But then the movie wasn't even great as a whole, either, so they bungled that, too. Travelling to those places and incorporating the important cultural aspects worked a lot better in those other movies. I think they just couldn't handle cramming in so many different cultures in one movie, or didn't understand it's not one homogeneous culture.

[@Jumpoable]

I'm glad they got to live it up at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok & Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay & Sayan in Bali.

[@StarlightPrism]

Man, now I'm thinking it would have been super cool if Raya did take place in post-apocalyptic SEA. It would give better justification for the mishmash of cultures, and the dragon stuff could be some theme of return to spirituality/nature/tradition after industry and greed destroyed the world. Or something. Plus I don't think Disney has any animated movie that takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting.

[@silomenezes2935]

It would be like a supernatural reboot of Waterworld. I'm on board for that movie!

[@yawninglion1677]

Yeah, that would've been way more interesting, and would've explained the cultural jumbling and weakening.

[@geohiekim8705]

Wall-E sobs in the corner

[@jeffreygao3956]

@@geohiekim8705 Half counts; The people are in space for the most part.

[@marianomorellalou3444]

That kinda sounds like the plot of final fantasy X and it would be awesome to use it in an animated movie.

[@PlantagenetRose]

Ironically, this reminds me of Syndrome, A DISNEY VILLAIN FROM TWO DECADES AGO. His quote “When everyone is super, no one is.” When you represent everyone, you represent no one.

[@jeffreygao3956]

Which is rich because Syndrome seeks a monopoly in super technology.

[@emmaemmafield717]

They tried to appease everyone by including everyone but as a result pissed everyone off as they say “A friend to all is a friend to none”

[@jeffreygao3956]

@@emmaemmafield717 The Non-Aligned Movement was popular in Southeast Asia so...

[@Handepsilon]

If you're talking about the one during Cold War. It's less of trying to appease both sides and more of "You guys both suck and we want no part of your silly conflict"

[@osmanyousif7849]

"You sly dog. You got yourself monologing..."

[@AllTheArtsy]

I felt the presenter's passion when talking about the kris/keris. The fact that a museum, which is literally meant to preserve cultural artifacts, will not unsheath a keris that still has blood on it because it culturally needs blood sacrifice, tells you everything you need to know about how important and heavy its symbolic and religious meaning is.

[@miinfl7143]

Just want to point out that the keris has the same deep spiritual and cultural significance in Malaysia and Brunei as it does in Indonesia. Indonesians have an inflated habit of seeing their culture as the most authentic and the best.

[@AllTheArtsy]

@@miinfl7143 it does in the Philippines too and the presenter clearly mentioned that

[@canned_can_chan4590]

@@AllTheArtsy yeah, she just focuses on the meaning in indonesia cos she's javanese

[@miinfl7143]

@@AllTheArtsy I'm sorry if you misunderstand. I'm not taking a dig at the Philippines. I was referring to what she said at 21:45 "in Indonesia keris holds a different weight entirely" meaning it doesn't hold the same weight elsewhere.

[@AllTheArtsy]

@@miinfl7143 i didnt misunderstand that you were taking a dig at the Philippines. I think you are being needlessly aggressive against Indonesians when the presenter clearly stated that the keris is used elsewhere too and she will only speak to the limited perspective of where she is from

[@whatalsaid]

As a southeast Asian (Filipino), I personally related more to Encanto than Raya, and that's probably because Filipino culture tends to lean more on the Spanish side, which can ALSO be used as an argument to why mixing all these southeast Asian countries into one fantastical place would be a bad idea, because a LOT of Southeast Asian countries have VASTLY different cultures from one another. Maybe they should've picked just ONE SEA country to base Kumandra on, Kinda like how Arendelle in Frozen is distinctly Norway. Or how Motunui in Moana is distinctly Samoan.

[@AllTheArtsy]

Fellow Filipino and I completely agree! Different SEA countries were more or less influenced by different religions, colonialised by different countries, that it made less sense to make a "Southeast Asian" movie. Specificity is what matters in making a story feel more real and grounded and Raya has absolutely none.

[@geekychannel1524]

Me too I'm a vietnamese and I feel more related to movie like Mulan or Show like Avatar because vietnamese culture is more similar to East Asia country than SEA country, SEA is a very diverse place they really should not mix everything into one nation.

[@liriodendronlasianthus]

Malaysian here. Personally found a lot in common with Encanto and Coco! I didn't feel the same about Raya at all.

[@ellikasan]

Even in a single country, treating the cultures as a monolith can be problematic. In the Philippines, the majority groups have historically been Hispanized, but a big chunk of the population ~10% are indigenous groups (Moros, Lumads, Igorots, Mangyans, Palawanos, etc.) who probably relate more to "typical" Southeast Asian culture.

[@Akhysalafi]

um....

[@patsymhae]

Imagine being a Filipino wearing a rosary saying, "Hey I'm more of a Jesus nerd because I wear a cross" 💀💀💀

[@conradbaker]

Ur either bible nerd, mary nerd, saint nerd, jesus nerd

[@jatoarkanen4435]

Well, many religious people collect icons and other religious symbols, so about nerds...

[@miisoma]

collect???

[@jatoarkanen4435]

@@miisoma I mean that I met some people who literally just collect iconography to look devout, and when you ask them about faith, they actually don't know anything

[@N3bu14Gr4y]

My Philipina step grandmother is a devout Catholic. There's no such thing as appropriating a religion with a mandate to spread it.

[@deliciousdelight7847]

"Its just a children's movie, Why give such extensive analysis?" well I wouldn't want my kid to unknowingly clap and be ignorantly amazed at a movie that basically slaps their face. they may not understand the whole entirety of these analyses but they would understand that disney did something upsetting.

[@jjj7790]

For a lot of children, this will be their first introduction to SEA culture and will affect how they see SEA people, and it's incredibly irresponsible for a company with so much influence to be this careless about it.

[@fifiannisa9639]

True. I imagine if children of SEA that can't grew up inside SEA because of their family situation and wanted to learn more about their cultures. They then introduced to SEA culture with this movie just because "it said it's based on SEA", those children would have a very different idea of what SEA cultures really are.

[@morewi]

Wouldn't that be your fault for not teaching them the culture.

[@mochamadakhtarsyach1381]

exactly, also, this is a great way to introduce SEAsian culture to kids, i remember when frozen got its fame, a lot of kids here would act like elsa and anna, they also would wear anna’s norwegian dress, if raya could give a very great representation of SEAn culture, i think a lot children here in indonesia would appreciate their culture more, and they would aware where they come from, where they are, what SEA really means to them. edit: not only in indonesia, but the whole southeast asia would be proud of its culture, and would embrace the movie, just like how latin community embraces encanto.

[@jeffreygao3956]

@@morewi Children can teach themselves; You've got to stop babying the kids! If they can tell William Wallace from Gustavus Adolphus, they can distinguish Jayavarman I from Ho Chih Minh.

[@skygazer8549]

"The movie represents Sambal as disgusting and too spicy" Excuse me WTF??? So far I've been only mildly annoyed, but this line shook me to my core, if you said that to my mom she will probably hate you for life. I can feel the disbelief from my acentors in my spine hearing that line.

[@hanin3128]

How dare they insult the all worship Sambal!!!!!!!

[@shireenrazak7160]

Sambal is fking delicious wtf.

[@esthermeyerhoff4113]

I'm super white and not at all asian and I also love sambal. It's not THAT spicy....depends how much you add.

[@depthstrider68]

As an Indonesian who doesn't like sambal, I find that offensive

[@jessalynesimanjuntak9463]

Omg how dare they,,, I’m an Indonesian and I eat sambal with like most of my meals, it literally makes it 10x more delicious. Disney is just no match for the power of sambal😩

[@duicic8541]

K(e)ris-wise - that bit is easily explained from a European perspective. Weapons with a wave-edged blade were surprisingly common in Renaissance Europe, and the design & posture Raya uses is EXACTLY the same you'd find in 15th/16th-century depictions of a German Doppelsöldner. In short, they likely went with a European weapon they thought looked cool, said "They have something like that in SEA, awesome" and did not bother to look into it any further.

[@mastermarkus5307]

That would make sense. Those swords would be _flammenschwert_ , a type of _zweihander_ , though it's notable that they were always much longer than Raya's sword. I also see the Keris/Kris as a weapon in various fantasy RPG video games without any cultural context, seemingly presented like it's just a cool-looking dagger.

[@AntediluvianRomance]

@@mastermarkus5307 I remember learning the word itself from Diablo II, so the RPG use has quite a history.

[@duicic8541]

@@mastermarkus5307 - most of these daggers do have a crossguard, though, which kinda disqualifies them from being a k(e)ris in the stricter sense. That's another point that makes Raya's weapon so clearly European-inspired - most Europeans cannot, for the life of themselves, imagine a sword without a crossguard, with the possible exception of the katana.

[@jessicaruggenenti1731]

@@duicic8541 "most Europeans cannot, for the life of themselves, imagine a SWORD without a crossguard, with the possible exception of the katana" Yes?! 'Cause a sword is, like the name says, a SWORD and was used most of the time for military purpouse, hence WHY it HAS TO HAVE a crossguard (= TO PROTECT THE HAND OF THE ONE USING THE SWORD FROM BEING CUT OR SEVERELY INJURIED, DEVIATING THE BLOW FROM OTHER SWORD USERS THAT WOULD OTHERWISE INCAPACITATE THE USE OF THE MAIN HAND OF THE SWORDFIGHTER, leading to their consequential disadvantage 'cause they could no longer use the sword or are now forced to use it with their off hand wich is less stronger and less trained, and will probably lead to their fucking death). SO YES, when you tipically imagine a sword you will always imagine a blade WITH a crossguard of sort EXCEPT when it's stated otherwhise (like for example a fucking KATANA or a KNIFE, due to their SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT style of combat!). Crossguard is wildly present NOT ONLY IN SWORDS THAT COME FROM EUROPE. Is not because "Europeans can't imagine a sword without crossguard, they are SO dumb and silly ghehehe, I'm too much intelligent and quirky eheh" Is bacause is UTTERLY STUPID, from a safety standpoint, TO USE A FUCKING SWORD IN A MILITARY/COMBAT CONTEST WITHOUT A CROSSGUARD that act as a mean of PROTECTION for the hands (and the parts of the body in its prossimity) of the swordfighter!! IS NOT THERE BECAUSE IT'S ONLY A DECORATIVE AND MARGINAL ACCESSORY -.-"""" IS A LIFE OR DEATH KIND OF SITUATION, dear freaking good Lords! Stop act intelligent when you don't even know what the fuck you are talking about (i.e.: swords and why they've being designed that way through history and military experience). Love, a "silly" European that likes HEMA and swordfighting :D:D

[@duicic8541]

@@jessicaruggenenti1731 - speaking as a "silly" European PhD candidate in military history, how about you drop the caps lock and we talk without the insults, hmmm?

[@amelia3146]

Coldest take: Disney doesn’t care about representation, they only care about aesthetic. I feel like I knew that (eg. every other non-European/American movie they’ve made) but I didn’t KNOW that, if that makes sense? Anyway, I appreciate this video to an immeasurable degree, have watched it like 900 times, and have shown it to pretty much everyone I know. Thank you so much to all who contributed!! Edit: it particularly blows my mind how badly they butchered the keris part. I have rarely seen such blatant and aggressive disrespect-at least not that I know of-in recent media. PARTICULARLY when that media is marketing itself as ‘authentic’ to that culture. It’s astounding.

[@StrawberryCocoaPowder]

Agreed. Only Disney movies that I would say that the representation wasn't bad is Encanto and Lilo and Stitch.

[@ImaNerdANDaGeek]

@@StrawberryCocoaPowder Did Coco and Moana do a bad job of representation? I know that had some of Disney's moneygrubbing problems attached to it as Coco was originally going to be titled "Day of the Dead" and they tried to trade mark the name of a holiday that has been around for centuries, and Moana's merchandising costumes with Maui's cultural tattoos didn't seem to be showing due respect but I thought the movies themselves did have the culture present as something other than a superficial aesthetic. Then again, I am not the most familiar with those cultures so what do I know.

[@StrawberryCocoaPowder]

@@ImaNerdANDaGeek I responded late sorry but. I'm not that sure because I haven't really watched Coco or Moana to make good judgement. But I don't think the rep is bad there

[@asteros_]

Well, if it helps (it probably doesn't), they do it with "Europe"-based movies too. It's all aesthetic.

[@kotaniyumiko]

@@asteros_ yeah but you have to understand that most European cultures are not under represented in media, there are exceptions or course such as Eastern Europeans who are often silenced and misrepresented as just the villains but generally speaking communities such as Southeast Asians or Polynesians have never had proper representation in Western media.

[@bakersbooks]

My biggest takeaway is that if Xiran could crowdsource this info for free, Disney could definitely have paid southeast Asian experts to give Raya the design it deserved. Excellent video!

[@PriyaPans]

All they had to do was email the right people. Or heck.... I'm sure there's some SEA people in the gigantic disney workforce. Everyone from digital artists, people working in audio. People working in admin. People working on the buildings in maintenance. There's probably an army's worth of SEAsians just in their own employee database. Asking them all about their own lives experiences and cultures, and then asking if they can point towards other groups, temples and such for more information should be easy for disney. And that's IF Disney wanted to be cheap. Disney have so much money that they could've basically done what all travel documentary shows creators do - travel to all the countries involved. Get multiple tours guides for country. To cover culture (music, sports. Dance, games, clothing, art), architecture, food and drink, fighting styles. History and relations to other countries. Etc etc. Disney have the money for this and ALL information they'd gain for such efforts would be valuable, and they could keep all this info on file for many future projects.

[@agnivela]

If a discord server can produce this kind of research, disney got no excuse

[@eiamhara]

It's become clear after seeing this movie that while Disney CLAIMED Raya was 'SEA representation,' it wasn't who the movie was FOR. The movie was a safe, sanitized, cash-grab of a project that they tried to double-dip as also being a cultural rep movie and I hope they can see how badly their supposed 'authenticity' was seen through. I want to thank EVERY contributor to this video, and to Xiran for elevating its visibility by posting it on their channel. As a white American I learned so much through these presentations and I appreciate all the time and effort all of you put into them. I will continue to support own-voices content like this as best I can and hope for even more of it in the future, especially in the mainstream!

[@smoogieboogie1694]

Yeah it was the later declaration of trying to make this film SEA representation for brownie points that ultimately harmed it. I feel like if they hadn’t tried to have their cake and eat it too, this would be remembered as a fun and harmless film in a fantasy world. People don’t come down on ATLA for poor representation because it never claimed to be something it was not, only took inspiration from some real world cultures.

[@garrettcarter5622]

I'm sure SOMEBODY working on this film cared about it.

[@StarlightPrism]

@@garrettcarter5622 The fact that some of the concept art is more culturally accurate makes me wonder if the movie was initially intended to be more accurate to the cultures, but then there was some meddling to make it more appealing to western audiences.

[@garrettcarter5622]

@@StarlightPrism All I know is I want to divorce all the drama before watching it to see if there is a decent core story behind the discourse. If there is, then it's unfortunate that it stumbled so hard in it's representation. If there isn't, then the movie is a complete write-off and just another dud. Sometimes Disney makes those.

[@miunywonder4506]

I've found it to be a poorly executed movie even without knowing all the stuff these videos taught me. It *looks* pretty, but it kinda stops there. And from the video it seems that even in that department they could have done so much more. Story, worldbuilding and characters all fall flat, everything is rushed and overall not particularly inspiring. Which is a pity, because it could have been so much more. And as an European, let me say that the "make it more appealing for Western audience" is not that great of an excuse xD I hope we can agree? People have the capabilities to appreciate different cultures from their own. I personally love when I can also learn something new! Let's hope these big corp productions will get more inclusive and truly authentic all around in the future 🙏

[@WavesofColours]

Not insinuating anything here, so don't go off on the offensive. I am merely providing a brief Bruneian perspective on the Kris. Since in the discussion she only focuses on the Indonesian perspective, as she clarified. Brunei also holds the kris in high regards, culturally, socially and politically. The Sultanate himself has several, the most famous one is called "Keris Si Naga", literally translated to "Dragon's Kris". And almost every Bruneian wedding, the groom has a kris tucked in his sinjang. Almost all Bruneian kris has loks or waves and any good smith should know that the loks have to be of odd numbers. There are also local tales of the blade of the kris turning into snakes. And yes, in Brunei it is usually frowned upon to nonchalantly take out the kris from the sheath without reason. Ceremonially or otherwise. As again it can either be an act of aggression or disrespect to either party. Moreover, the kris here still holds a very frowned upon role, of being an instrument in "Sihir/Pukau" or black magic/curses. Which, also involves blood and others. The kris is also used in part of our pancak silat. And the actual holding of the keris, yes, the presenter in the video mentioned, is far off on how Raya holds her. With Raya holding it more as a straight edge sword. Bruneian kris are usually quite shorter in comparison to our SEA counterparts as well. And our sheaths usually has metal patterns on it. Patterns are present on both sheath and blade, as patterns are believed to heighten the strength and lethality of the kris. And most of the time the preferred design of the hilt in Brunei is either a bird, elephant or snake. But most I personally seen and owned is the the hilt is most likely a rooster head. As rooster's have a distinctive cultural image in Brunei. And this has been a brief Bruneian perspective and significance of the kris. And again, this is not meant to be an argument to the presenter. Just another perspective of the sacred kris from a neighbouring SEA nation. Much 💛❤️

[@shandya]

This is great! On the first video they said that they couldn’t find Bruneian contributors at that time. So this is a valuable insight. I hope more people like your comment so it will be visible on the top comments.

[@orangeapricot4630]

Ahhh this is so cool!! Thank you for sharing! 🙆

[@thepunishersequence291]

ayyy another Bruneian

[@sarahwatts7152]

Thanks for sharing!!

[@juni__]

thank u so much for this information!! that is so so interesting :O!!

[@GippyHappy]

I'm genuinely surprised they didn't just make each group based on a different country. Like Talon is Vietnam inspired, Fang is Philippines, etc etc (just as an example). Not to compare to Last Airbender again but that was one way they made each nation feel distinct. By actually making them based on different cultures instead of having all these supposedly different cultures that all pull from random places and mix them up until it's unrecognizable.

[@octosquid48]

That's an amazing idea

[@splendidsey]

They didn’t do that on purpose, because they didn’t want to spread negative stereotypes.

[@GippyHappy]

How would that spread negative stereotypes? @@splendidsey

[@splendidsey]

@@GippyHappy Sorry I haven’t watched Raya since 2022, but to my memory the different tribes had different negative Stereotypes attached to them (with not enough time to properly deconstruct them) and on top of it Namaari‘s tribe was literally „the bad guys“. I‘m sure that if they were based on real life cultures that wouldn’t have been well received.

[@GippyHappy]

@@splendidsey I don’t really think that’s accurate. Isn’t the moral of the story everyone should get along? The story should be better written in general, but it should just try to be like Avatar and have every culture be unique and interesting. The fire nation are the “bad guys.” And yet it’s made clear it’s got nothing to do with their race or anything. Dictators happen in real life.

[@randominterwebzstranger]

Hi, I'm one (very small part) of the Southeast Asian team that helped to put this together over 9 months, and on behalf of the server where this all started - thank you for watching! And no, Southeast Asians are NOT East Asians. Our nations have people of East Asian ethnicity, and South Asian ethnicity, but there are also indigenous people like the Dayaks, to give but one example. To perceive Southeast Asia as some kind of 'redux East Asia' is massively erasing to an incredibly deep vein of cultures that span the entire region. I also want to say on behalf of our community that we do not speak for all Southeast Asians. Inevitably, there will be some who disagree, and that's fine! We have, and never will be a monolith-that's a part of being a rich and diverse culture. All we ask is that you watch with an open mind!

[@AllTheArtsy]

It also massively ignores and fails to come to terms with the massive Chinese problem where natives from their own country are displaced and discriminated against by the wealthier Chinese class. The heavy use of imagery that in first glance looks more Chinese than Southeast Asian is infuriating.

[@Nolaris3]

@@AllTheArtsy I don't think its fair to generalize the Chinese as a "problem", let alone wealthy. The Chinese population have been living in Southeast Asia for centuries and mostly engaged in commerce. Agriculture was the main profession for most Southeast Asians at the time and some rulers had few issues because it didn't affect the farmers and it allowed for income from Chinese trade that was facilitated by the tributary system. Vietnam also has a long history with China (occasionally as enemies), where a lot of Sinitic culture is shared and you would expect to see a lot of Chinese architecture in those places. With regards to class, some Chinese did certainly get very wealthy through commerce, though we can't say it was universal. The rise of nationalism in the 20th century would end up being very bad for the Chinese. The rise of nationalism in Thailand was always associated with suspicion and discrimination of the Chinese population, and kept getting worse in the Second World War and through much of the Cold War. During the era of nation-building, many countries had to sort of "re-invent" what their nation would look like, which often involved seeing the Chinese as a foreign other. Suppression of Chinese culture was very prominent in the Cold War, with a lot of forced assimilation, disempowerment, and certainly plenty of violence. Much of this time has long past and there are certainly a number of very wealthy ethnic Chinese people in Southeast Asia, most of whom have long associated themselves with the country they live in. Countries Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and others have a sizable native Chinese population who still practice some of their old culture. The more recent thing that you are probably angry about are the rise of mainland Chinese investment into Southeast Asia, which is something to think about. However, decrying Chinese imagery for a Southeast Asia is just as infuriating if you ignore the millions of ethnic Chinese people who will always identify themselves as Southeast Asians first.

[@raspite3195]

@@AllTheArtsy I agree that the use of imagery that looks more Chinese than Southeast Asian is infuriating. For your comment about discrimination, the discrimination really goes both ways between natives and the Chinese. The power dynamic isn't entirely the same either. In fact, my dad has been discriminated against by his superiors for being Chinese-Indonesian. For the happenings back in '98 in Indonesia, I won't go into detail since it's a *very* heavy topic. I'm not saying that discrimination doesn't happen from wealthier Chinese folk, I'm not saying that you aren't acknowledging that there's aggression from both sides either. I'm just saying that generalizing an entire population just isn't a good idea to do

[@jeffreygao3956]

Alright then! Are We were Soldiers and Ken Burns’ Vietnam good as representation? Granted it’s not a fair comparison since those two just had one Southeast Asian country to focus on rather than all 11 and Vietnam’s a documentary.

[@diosundoro5019]

As someone from SEAsia, I feel like Disney was trying so hard not to offend anyone from SEAsia, but ended up offending anyone from SEAsia 😂

[@hillarypritchard9249]

Just like the live action Mulan which brought us Xiran!

[@user-gp5yz5yz4x]

I feel like they didnt try at all, to be honest

[@mechanikalbull5626]

it only seems the whole region was offended but actually the clout was coming from the most vocal demographic in the region who are dying for validation from international community.

[@jeffreygao3956]

So...We were Soldiers did Vietnam justice more than Raya and the Last Dragon?!

[@helen-fk4bf]

FR finding Amy culture I this movie is like searching for Waldo at some point 🗿

[@Awesome_Pichu]

Imagine if they kept the Kris Raya carries as belonging to her father and it held a spirit. Her father explains how it seemed to teach what he needed to know and know what to do in times of need. But whenever she carries it, she describes it as feeling 'wrong' in her hands. And whenever she unsheathes it to use as a weapon, bad things start to happen around her. Maybe later on the journey she meets someone who explains what the blade is for and how she is disrespecting it by treating it as a weapon.

[@harayaalirak4040]

and Sisu could be the spirit that is "meant" for her blade! It would reason why Raya, despite being constantly annoyed and irritated by Sisu, stuck by her and eventually became friends. a spiritual connection

[@Awesome_Pichu]

@Haraya Alirak Sisu could have taught her father about trusting others and maybe have lessons be about, not to blindly trusting everyone, but reaching out and building trust with others.

[@crowdemon_archives]

So many missed opportunities lol

[@kai8618]

Better yet, She knows it can cause disasters to happen around her and she uses that to her advantage in battle. Have Namaari point out, "You can't possibly be thinking of using that as a weapon?" Before having no choice but to clash with it. Ensue minor earthquake or disaster that Raya uses to escape.

[@_.ffischll._]

Ooohh yeah, maybe the kris could have something like a Stand (a spirit that helps you fight and has their own unique ability)

[@kerodawie2059]

The reason why everything is just so wrong about Raya, is that they smooshed ASEAN altogether and said, "here you go, a representation". Plus, there is no individualism in ASEAN; don't get me wrong, SEA is family. However, we get our own culture, traditions, uniqueness and they just put all together in many wrong places.

[@user-guigui01]

May I screenshot your comment so I can print in a rice paper to put in a cake so people have to eat when they said "but this is already enough representation"?

[@kerodawie2059]

@@user-guigui01 lol! Go ahead and try. But I bet you wouldn't make people eat it. I ain't eating cake with a rice paper in it....

[@jeffreygao3956]

To represent Southeast Asia better: -A period drama about the rise of the Khmer Empire and its zenith like Rome: The Series recycled in Cambodia. -A Si Inthrathit story similar to William Wallace's war of insurrection or the American Revolution. -Polynesian pirates battling Khmer Empire soldiers. -A Singaporean drama in the 70s or 80s. -We Were Soldiers movie. -Deadliest Fiction battles that have historical warriors from Southeast Asia like the Maharlika, Igorot warrior, Juramentado, Khmer Rouge, and more.

[@gwammeh]

25:30 I’m Dutch. The Dutch stole a *lot* of krises over the whole colonialism period. And many of the Indonesians will still remember the details of their krises specifically because they have such incredible spiritual, religious, and cultural histories behind them, and would very much like them back as soon as the Dutch stop being assholes about it.

[@taekai4279]

At that point the spirits in the Keris have probably either left or just got weaker. Since their rituals aren’t conducted they will lose their power after a while.

[@thismissivemisfit]

And the same goes for British museums for a lot of Malay treasures and scriptures. We have so many local scholars who want to study our our own pre-colonial histories and cultures, but the British crown/government are still hoarding those artifacts to this day. Also applies to the other colonies under them as well.

[@antoinelambert938]

Are we even sure they are still in dutchland? As far as we know the english may have looted them all during ww2 while trying to claim credits for the actions of Léo Major.

[@gwammeh]

@@antoinelambert938 I don't doubt that the English probably stole a bunch of them, but you can still occasionally find them second- or thirdhand in stores or on [Dutch eBay-Equivalent], and that's just what pops up.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

@@gwammeh sorry but aren't Indonesians Muslims? So how can they have spiritual significance?

[@lumidotexe]

When this movie first came out, I thought it was great. I’m a Vietnamese American woman who practically has had no connections to my SEA culture in my life, so this movie was the first dose of what I *thought* a small piece of my culture looked like. Thank you and the server so much for making this video. I learned new things about not just Vietnam and my own background, but other SEA cultural aspects which fascinate me. watching this made me want to rewrite the entire story in my head with the more accurately represented information you all gave. amazing work 🤩

[@geekychannel1524]

If you want some vietnamese culture you won't find much in this movie because different from other SEA country our culture is more influence by Shinosphere culture.

[@teaz3139]

Write it as fan fiction

[@SkaYouth]

Im born and raised in SEA and like you I also think the movie is ok. It isn’t accurate in any ways but then again it is a disney product, so I didn’t put any high expectation or anything. The premise of trying to represent the whole SEA continent in itself is a bullshit goal in the first place. I’m just glad tbh to see elements (keris, few visual aesthetic and the importance of food in our culture 🤣) that I grew up with being depicted in an american movie, albeit in superficial way. It’s (for lack of better term) ‘fanservice’ at best but that’s what you get with a team of non-SEA american writers. People put too much expectation in this projects. As a western movie, Raya is an ok in my book. Raya to me served more as a conversation starter than a ‘SEA representation’. To look at the element and discussing what’s right and what’s wrong (just like these 2 part series did).

[@lllllShjnllll]

I'm Vietnamese myself and if I have to rate the representation of our culture in the movie it's gonna be a 0.5/10. That 0.5 is for the Hoi An lanterns in the floating market place since from all of the other aspects of Raya the Vietnamese culture is so underrepresented and tweaked that I was genuinely shocked they did ONE acceptable thing. The rest, eh, I personally think it's a stretch to say they even tried to represent something. And I don't buy the "it's made by a white team you shouldn't expect it to be good" either. Our culture, or any culture at all, is NOT something for outsiders to monetize and we should stand firm that it is NOT okay to be half-assed about these kind of stuff, even if it's "fantasy for children". We do not tolerate cultural appropriation! That said I'm glad you're getting more in touch with your background! I hope the information provided inspire you to create and get more intimate with another part of you. c:

[@aaronmontgomery2055]

As a Vietnamese American but one more connected to my culture, I will say out culture is the odd one out of SEA cultures except maybe indonesia and the Philippines. We are part of the Indochina sphere and at the same time heavily influenced by the French ( I mean we are the only ones with Latin based alphabet). I would rather not be included than to be included disrespectfully like this. If we were bigger they would care but we know they don't and I just don't like being lied to that they care.

[@macmac_]

Hi, Filipino here! I would like to add to what other Filipinos said about the food section. Rice is very much integral in our diet to the point that the less fortunate would have meals that comprise just of rice because it's filling and they can't afford to add anything else. There is also a phrase "kanin karpentero", roughly translating to carpenters' food, because the rice is practically 2/3-3/4 of the meal, leaving 1/4-2/3 of the meal is the viand (ulam in Filipino) And to reiterate what other Filipinos commented, the sablay comes from our many indigenous groups and is not limited to only being a graduation uniform. It was only adapted by the university. Thank you so much for the in-depth analysis!! The passion is definitely felt throughout the presentations. This is truly a love letter to SEA. I learned a lot about my neighboring countries, and this showed me how much more we should demand for better representation. Though other than that, we should also help expose more ppl to the amazing already made works of media native to SEA. I believe it will also help the SEA diaspora connect and understand the native experience much more, combating the great divide between the diaspora experience vs the native experience. Much love! 💕

[@fossilfighters101]

+

[@mechanikalbull5626]

but you guys are the one who are the loudest barkers regarding raya. bruhhhh as if you contributed that much... oh wait you didn't have much to contributed to start with!

[@0927kira]

@@mechanikalbull5626 huh

[@juni__]

@@mechanikalbull5626 from the third video, a filipino from their discord group states that they werent able to contribute, please respect that

[@kotaniyumiko]

@@mechanikalbull5626 They can be as loud as they want, filipinos are still Southeast Asians, the people Disney said they would represent with this film yet failed to do so

[@pauieeepau]

The precolonial Philippine people have been described by the colonizing Spaniards as covered in tattoos and gold. So I appreciate that part of the fashion discussion. There were tattoos for heroic deeds, status, and even trans people had special tattoos. It was a missed opportunity. Overall, what I'm getting is that Raya was rushed af in every aspect.

[@salad.thatsallyouregetting.]

wait, trans people had special tattoos?? i never heard of it, what is/are the tattoo/s called (genuine question)

[@PriyaPans]

It's a shame that precolonial countries seem so open to aspects of society that seem to be gone now. In Indian but live in the UK. What little I know (2nd/3rd generation born over here) is that before colonisation, gay and trans people were more accepted, sex work and non-monogamy were also accepted options. Basically both gender and sexuality were seen as a spectrum and accepted openly. Obviously post colonialism and with the forced religion... Much if not all of that was lost. On one of my previous visits to India I was a church built and I learned about how many people were forced to convert upon paid of torture or death of themselves or loved ones. It's really sad. I struggle to think about my current life here in the UK in the context of colonisation. I'm proud of my ancestors and everything they did. I'm also proud of what my recent ancestors did in coming over here and working really hard to make a better life for themselves and other family. I'm glad I have the decent human rights I have over here. But it's really really bittersweet and everything has come at a lot of expenses.

[@icaruslemaitre]

A nitpick, but the usage of the sablay is NOT exclusive to Filipino university graduates. It very much still is a part of indigenous Filipino fashion. I literally have one and use it regularly. Like, the reason it became part of university regalia was BECAUSE it was native clothing.

[@lepetitrin]

As a Vietnamese, the "dep la" is... haizzz. The only word that can give "dep la" a meaning is "đẹp lạ". And yes, in VN-ese it literally means "strangely beautiful" or "beautiful and bizarre". The word "đẹp lạ" is an old slang used the most by young people, Millenium. It was used more usually back when we still have Vietnam Idol show on TV (2007-2014, which is 7 to more than 10 years ago). Its usage is to compliment exotic beauty, uncommon beauty traits (short curly hair, dark-tone skin, contrary to the common image of long straight hair girl in Ao Dai). And we use it as the nickname for that one singer from the Vietnam Idol, or Miss Beauties coming from other ethnic groups than Kinh people or Hoa (Chinese) people. So no, there is no queer coding in the word. In Vietnam, if you find someone beautiful and want to compliment them you can use it, regardless of gender. But I have to remind you that in some specific context, "đẹp lạ" can suggest an idea of insulting. Because some people don't find the beauty standard from other ethnic groups that are not Kinh or Hoa beautiful at all, so depending on the situation and the tone of voice, the word "đẹp lạ" is a way to make fun of other people's look. Now as a Vietnamese, when I saw the word "dep la", I instantly think of "đẹp lạ", and I find it's kinda old fashioned for Disney to use such an old slang that only has a temporary impact on our society.

[@HoaTruong-km9rk]

foreigner, the writer wouldn't know that đẹp lạ can be use as insulting though since it's an inside joke thing. They just gonna understand it literally.

[@lepetitrin]

@@HoaTruong-km9rk yeah, I just add the part "insulting" after stating that people can use it to compliment anyone they find beautiful, just in case that somebody passes by and decides to use it in future.

[@tana3875]

Although it was a joke, the screaming slippers interpretation doesn’t work at all since in Vietnamese, the d in slippers is more of y sound

[@quynhlinhphamngoc7400]

I'm really out of touch with my fellow kids so I wasn't aware of đẹp lạ being a slang. But even then the way it's used reminds me of "where is my bật lửa", which is what Vietnamese-English bilinguals like myself would use as a joke.

[@jeffreygao3956]

SCREAMING SANDALS!

[@jade1229]

From someone who practiced silat for years (malaysian here) the whole fighting scene was really westernized lmao. Silat is always connected to spirituality and connection with your teacher. We also focus on emphasizing your body and your stance to ensure u can fight better.

[@CottageGurl]

Disney doesn't give a fudge about representation, they only did it cuz of the aesthetics.. this movie is BS

[@jeffreygao3956]

Benja could at least say something. "Very good! Just maybe don't do a big dramatic leap that I could impale you on."

[@CombustibleCake]

wait, the sablay isn’t “only” used by the university of the philippines. it’s used by some minor ethnic groups like the ifugao, but the university recently used it to replace graduation togas. that would also explain why you couldn’t find much information on it or the bakunawa masks: the lumad, or minor ethnic groups native to our islands before mass immigration from neighbouring lands are today heavily oppressed and ostracised. many assimilate into larger ethnic groups in order to live because their people are not only not supported by the goverment, but persecuted for their lands and resources.

[@jimsuan6988]

Yes thank you

[@JingDalagan]

@SpacedPanini Maybe some folks sent these presentations to Holy Angel University Center for Kapampangan Studies?

[@RavenPH12]

@SpacedPanini Would it be fair to invite Kirby Araullo? His KZbin channel is amazing sharing Filipino culture and history. He would be amazing as a consultant for this kind of project. Edit: Congrats on doing this amazing collaboration! I love educational videos like these.

[@JingDalagan]

@SpacedPanini I tried sharing this video in an FB group of Filipino historians. Hoping for additional insights from the Kapampangan perspective.

[@mechanikalbull5626]

@@RavenPH12 kirby bicht has no credibility as scholar, he can't engage in argument and just blocks people who contradicts his sp!d opinion. boooo

[@user-op4mc1cu3o]

Jesus, how could they mash all that diverse clothing into one movie? Raya really should've just focused on one SEA country/culture instead. It ended up with no one identifying or relating with it.

[@carpevinum8645]

Or 5.

[@arya3528]

That's like the disney signature at this point lmao. One particular example is Aladdin, which ended up being an orientalist caricature of the Middle East

[@junirenjana]

As a SEAsian of mixed ethnic background, I personally think that Disney trying to represent the extremely diverse region in one movie is not a problem. The problem lies more on the fact that the diversity represented is mishmashed beyond recognition, instead of being presented as cohesive units. I'd rather see 20 tribes each based on roughly 20 different cultures, than 5 tribes with every single of them being amalgamation of various SEA culture.

[@Crawlingdreams418]

someone said that it would've been way better if it was a tv show and i agree, tbh

[@carpevinum8645]

@@junirenjana I meant pick 5 to focus on and use one as the basis of each tribe in the movie. That way they would each have a chance at being remotely authentic. I know some people would miss out on specific representation, but that is this time around. They can look at other cultural groups in a later project (like coco and encanto - not saying how well either one was done either way, however their approachbat least had a chance at bringing some kind of recognisability and authenticity to the representation).

[@silentevenings4506]

As somebody with a costume design degree, the "redesigning kumandra” section is AMAZING. Minus individual renderings this is high level work. Somebody give her an award and a deal to design for a full on movie like, right now.

[@sentival]

I dont have the degree but im quite observant in my heritage as well as neighbouring regions. It was indeed AMAZING. If it was me, probably the most far i will do is to assign one style for each tribe. But she went ahead and assigned the tribe based on color pallete, geographical environment, and lifestyles. Thats genius!

[@caridadchang7895]

the Keris part reinforces something I have seen a lot in American media which is that they want to be "respectful" of other cultures but then if those cultures are "supersticious" or " spiritual" or "religious" this is often used as a way to mock them. you can not be respectful of a culture while also looking down on their religious believes; as some of these is the fact that western views on oficial religions over here, such a Cristianity, have become negative due to some legit reasons, they also apply those feelings to religion in general without looking at the differences between them. which is yes, another way of treathing others as a monolyth.

[@gandalfbutfancier5216]

I 100% agree with this

[@Soroboruo]

You nailed it. I've seen some recent commentary that helped me realize, Christian fundamentalism has a lot to answer for. Even supposedly atheist writers, when they grow up in culturally Christian countries, have a strong tendency to treat all other religions and faiths as 'barbaric superstition', infantilizing it at best and often demonizing it. And if they include any flavor of Christianity or Christianity-analogue in it, that becomes the One True (or closest to true) Belief while everything else is still misused and mistreated. It's easy to miss if you grew up steeped in that culture (like me) until someone points it out.

[@dongysakura418]

Christianity spirituality is also looked down upon in the west, specifically america. America is kinda atheist in how it views religion and spirituality

[@bintangaimee9069]

@@dongysakura418 yeah, they yassified it or something like that... which is weird

[@dongysakura418]

@@bintangaimee9069 yeah, it's ignorance, ironically.

[@chishionotenshi]

This is such a Disney thing to market your movie aggressively as progressive and "different from other girls," but not actually do any of the work, like slapping glitter on a poorly done resin cast of a bad mold and calling it couture. This happens the most during their "princess" movies, which are marketed toward young girls who would not know the difference. Which is why these kind of essay takedown videos are so important! The idea that nobody should criticize Disney for making only vague handwaves in the direction of a cultural area they claim to represent "because they tried" is perhaps the highest of privileged statements. It's not like Disney actually gives European cultures their due, either.

[@alsuvarnadvipadanargentum1743]

In terms of European Mythology also NOT being given their full due-there’s some truth in that-this ranges from Italian children’s storybooks (Pinocchio), to French fairytales (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty-case of regional variety), Hans Christian Andersen (Little Mermaid, Frozen), mature Novels with established Authors (Fox and the Hound, Black Cauldron, Hunchback of Notre Dame) to Greek Mythology itself and so many more that I didn’t mention

[@MsMeiriona]

@@alsuvarnadvipadanargentum1743 the absolute INSULT offered to The Snow Queen alone, a story that could have easily been directly adapted, is enough to know that Disney has no history or intention of respecting cultures.

[@alsuvarnadvipadanargentum1743]

@@MsMeiriona True, Disney given their Cultural Superpower Status, May be a good introduction (even if it’s a BAD one essentially speaking) BUT if it helped some curious people on doing their own research on the differences between the Disney version and the REAL thing that is if the researchers themselves are culturally aware and sensitive then That’s appreciated Really…BUT the damage is still done courtesy of the Corporation who funded a movie about different cultures from their own, lumping one geopolitical region’s cultures into one AND is suppressing the creativeness of the actual artists involved be they SEA descended or not due to corporal restraints & money first mentality by the Corporate executives because American expectations first while the actual voices coming from the “sourceland” themselves Southeast Asia itself in this case, ARE actually being silenced because BS identity politics makes any discussions about Culture a REAL Landmine or Worse a War-zone especially if regions where REAL inter-ethnic and Geopolitical conflicts are still ongoing As if that ain’t enough, in some articles that I have read (my own memory is hazy about the details that I’ve missed) which is about regarding EUROPEAN’S own valid complaints about Disney Films inspired by European fairytales (Frozen, Pinocchio, Hercules) 1st one involving replacing a beloved theme park in Norway for a Disney made one, 2nd one involving the grandchild of Carlo Collodi SUING Disney for “Moral Copyright”-copyright laws are different back then and are less strict than our era’s version there’s several KZbin videos about © and the 3rd one involves actual Greek people examining the contents of “Disney’s Hercules” and they HATE the Film so much that the aforementioned Film itself is Banned in Greece-even though the same reviled film itself did receive a Greek Dub, Aliakai the KZbinr made a video about the cultural inaccuracies of “Disney’s Hercules” go look that up if you want to

[@wrestlinganime4life288]

@@alsuvarnadvipadanargentum1743 makes you appreciate the Witcher (the game and books) even more. Too bad Netflix didn't get the memo

[@general9179]

@@wrestlinganime4life288 not at all. Witcher books are extremely problematic but I need to say that this is in completely different subject.

[@harayaalirak4040]

1:03:38 The lack of fish dishes is definitely what stood out to me too! No dried fish, fish with various sauces, or even soup? Not even in the tribe that is supposedly water-based trading? :p

[@cyncynshop]

Fish erasure >:( I don't know what Hollywood has against fish dishes man. The culinary fish dishes is just sushi and more sushi.....

[@himasekiwari155]

Holy damn just realized it now also..not much south east asian fruits and veggies and dishes too ...sus

[@skolas-aditya]

See, that's the thing. Even their internal worldbuilding doesn't make much sense outside of the cultural representation problems.

[@Nolaris3]

A lot of people don't know that some of the oldest Southeast Asian foods were fermented fish. Anything that is fried or cooked on a pan is not exactly native because they didn't have the means to do it. Cast iron would be invented in China and only through trade did newer dishes emerged through newer methods of cooking.

[@Tamaki742]

@@cyncynshop Lol fish erasure.

[@ghenesapaulma1963]

In addition to the language in Raya, they didn't even add HONORIFICS when it came to addressing the characters who are older than them. They're just basing each other by their first names and that's how u can tell a supposed Asian movie is written by Americans :/ And that is also why they should have stuck to just one SEA country to base their inspirations on so they could use the equivalent of "big sis/bro, aunt/uncle" etc of said country's language. Boun had mentioned his big sister, imagine the connection that could have begun between him and Raya. He could call her 'big sis' just cuz she's older and out of respect, but perhaps later on show a smidget of emotion from him that Raya really is like an actual big sis to him. Same goes for the others calling Tong "Uncle Tong". There are so many opportunities u can make in making the characters REALLY BOND with one another to almost like a found family (or like a COMMUNITY, as mentioned in the first vid) just by using the common practice of honorifics and following Asia's collectivistic ideologies. As for Arnis, I haven't rewatched Raya's fighting scene with her dad before this comment so I could only bring up what I remember. The one that stuck to me was Raya going for her dad's feet. In the 12 basic strikes of Arnis, the KNEES are one of ur targets to hopefully render ur enemies immobile. Chief Benja can easily move his feet way more quickly to avoid Raya's hits. The knees however. WIDE OPEN for the taking. Especially with TWO RATTAN STICKS. Also Arnis is VERY FAST. The scene was pretty brief and it may *look* fast with all that cinematography but ehhh, Raya doesn't seem fast enough with how she couldn't hit Benja's openings lol. It's more of a nitpick really, i'll let it slide cuz she's clearly still an amateur compared to her dad. That jumping in the air when she went for his head was obviously just for show, lol. Important things about arnis; not leave openings as much as possible, be quick with ur strikes in certain body parts that can either stun ur opponent or make them immobile, and learn to COUNTER. Lot of countering in arnis (or specifically in the art of balintawak, "endless counter"). And that's just arnis, Kali is even more deadly lol. Anyways BIG THANKS to the contributors of this project. Raya just COULD NOT leave my mind especially after watching these other Disney movies. I have been wishing that there would be more honest reviews and critiques on this supposed SEAsian movie BY SEAsians. And ohmigod this is MORE than what I could ask for. THANK U SO MUCH XIRAN for giving them a space to be heard 🙌

[@ChainedThoughts]

I think not everyone understands the spiritual significance that the Keris embodies. Yes, in Malaysian folklore, it was used for warriors like Hang Tuah but a lot of people forget that every Keris has their own spirits inside them. Although I do not know much about it, I am well-aware of how important it is to not only our culture but to our neighouring country; Indonesia. It was a shame that Raya couldn't even get that right and the audacity of them to just use it as a 'cool sword' in the movie. I also agree that depending on designs, the Keris has different functions but overall, they just completely turned something so sacred into a prop for aesthetic in the movie.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

But aren't Indonesians and Malaysians Muslims? So how could a sword have a religious meaning there?

[@ChainedThoughts]

@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl I never said religious. I said spiritual. The Keris have spirits living in them and that is what I meant by it being sacred. The term sacred doesn't always fall back to just religion although that is the most widely used way of saying it.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

@@ChainedThoughts spirituality is inherently religious

[@nala2508]

@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl i see your point, but i have to disagree with that. yes, the two can have influences on each other, but they are two seperate things. it’s like comparing the belief of ghosts to christianity, in western terms. yes, there is a lot of overlap between christians and those who believe in ghosts, and there are a lot of christian practices used to combat ghosts, but there are plenty of people who are christian and don’t believe in ghosts and believers of ghosts but atheist. spirituality does not necessarily equate to religion.

[@mqegg]

@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl well, to some if not all indigenous (orang asli) are non-muslims (speaking from malaysian perspective)

[@ymnu440]

As a Malaysian, I find the language usage was so strange. Kumandra people hating sambal, funny! We SEA people are spice-crazy

[@NoName-dx1no]

It’s not like sambal is bad too it’s delicious if it’s bad to the people of Kumandra then they are doing something wrong

[@theresisty7122]

You're underestimating how much white people hate flavor.

[@zekedone1845]

@@theresisty7122 Jamie Oliver proved it with his shitty chili jam when cooking any dish from SEA

[@danielasarmiento3101]

@@theresisty7122 pretty much as a latino you rarely find food with spice in the U.S

[@yawninglion1677]

@@theresisty7122 It sucks, being a white person who actually adores good spicy food, you can hardly find it here...

[@Gaawachan]

It is precisely because it is a children's movie- a family movie- from a massive, MASSIVE corporation that is SHOULD be heavily analyzed. We're talking about international cultural influence. There needs to be analysis and accountability, because in carelessness can be harm.

[@Jupiter-T]

Yeah, Disney has massive reach! Especially to very impressionable children.

[@jeffreygao3956]

Good thing Atun-Shei is anything but careless!

[@pranavghantasala6808]

13:17 What really double-triple-sucks is that this is genuinely impressive to watch. Just imagine Raya and Namaari going at each other like _that._ Especially since it's animated, and you can get really creative with the motion and the camera and whatnot. That would have been _so much cooler_ than what we got.

[@melanieschaefermeyer6955]

Exactly! It looks like a dance and not as stiff as Raya and Namaari’s generic fight scene. They had so much potential to make it look beautiful with the medium of animation and we should all feel robbed of something that could’ve been amazing :(

[@saitoyagami3043]

Some clarification on silat. There are many types of silat from many region of SEA. Silat can be ceremonial and functional. Silat is an open palm/hidden fist martial art. It is uncommon for Practioners to show their closed fist early in fights. Some Silat style and practitioners measures opponent strength and tactics first, meaning the first few moves are taunting or baiting moves, almost like dance (tari silat). The silat movement can be classified into three categories, the 4 steps, moving on the axis of forward, backward, left and right (tapak 4), 3 steps involving forward left or right side step, and 2 steps focusing on straight and forward movement. The further the practitioner into the fight, less step they use, signaling they are using more efficient forms. Some silat focuses on mastering only one of the movements. Silat is about putting the opponent off balance and avoiding self from being put into one. That is why horse stance (kuda - kuda), joint and limb locking (kunci), swipe strike (sapu) are key elements in silat. Other than the horse stance, popular stance includes the forward side stance (sendeng), and the formless stance (berdiri bersahaja). Some silat borrows animal movements incorporated in their stance. I have not watch the entire movie but I have seen the fight clips. Not seeing much, if any of silat elements in the fight scene. Agree with presenter on the leg lock, it should countered easily by Raya if she was inspired by silat for her martial art. Unfortunate. A traditional silat practioner and trainer from Malaysia.

[@Levynite]

Ok ok as someone who spent nearly a year learning and doing batik for a practical art exam in high school, the still image of the "batik" scene is killing me because 1) the fabric isn't stretched out on the frame which means you can't apply the pattern quickly nor smoothly which leads to b) the random character holding up the fabric with their other arm which is a bad idea because you're applying melted wax/resin which is hotter than boiling water with only a thin fabric in between but also c) that tool is the completely wrong shape a canting should not be wide mouthed like a bowl because it'll lose heat more easily than a normal canting which has a much smaller opening for the wax to go in from, you'll end up with a room temperature block of resin much much faster and will also spill everywhere including the craftsman and boiling hot liquid resin is painfully hot omg

[@coffeemug3009]

Just watched the part 1 and 2 of the Raya and the Last Dragon critique, as a Southeast Asian, I want to really thank YOU and the WHOLE COMMENTATORS in the videos for FINALLY voicing out ALL of the issues I personally felt myself about the movie. I know a lot of Southeast Asians like myself find Raya super problematic, but our voices were not heard, most media chose to play it safe and gave a PR spin on the movie. When Ellis pointed it out herself, she got backlash and hate by (mostly non-SEA) for being anti-Asian. I personally feel sad that she had to quit KZbin over this. Honestly, youtubers like you and Ellis can play a really important role by giving a platform to SEA commentators & talking about issues that mainstream media don't dare/care less to highlight, I hope we all can support each other in this tight-knitted youtube film commentary community. At the end of the day, we must resist corporate control and corporate gaslighting over issues regarding representation and authenticity - whom are mostly white exec with little understanding of other cultures & with the primary interest of lining their own pockets.

[@legaspinaomiannieverc.5180]

Aww this makes me wanna cry. Seeing how different my country (Philippines) looks like compared to other SEA countries makes me feel like I have no right to be proud of my SEA roots. I've been putting quite an effort lately in studying Pre-Colonial Phil. culture and history because it wasn't thought extensively in school. This video made me want to learn more about other SEA cultures. I'm crying this is so beautiful. To see how many people come together to make something like this makes me tear up a little. Thank you all so much!

[@ponkhan]

Nahhh, it just means we have our own flavor as SEA. Celebrate both the differences and the similarities, we're just as SEA as everyone else, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. :D

[@ninarances9074]

As a Filipino, I feel the same. I sometimes have the question "Are we Filipinos more Hispanic or Asian?" in my head and it would end sometimes with me thinking "I guess we're more Hispanic, not Asian....." But after watching the videos and learning that the Asian and indigenous part of our culture still hasn't died, but it got mixed with Hispanic culture, it made me feel a lot better. Knowing that no matter what, we're still Southeast Asian.

[@PrismaticGeyserr]

@@ninarances9074 i’ve grappled with this question before too. I find the answer is neither hispanic nor asian, we’re Southeast Asian, and even then that’s an umbrella term to large to describe oneself. I’ve come to terms with my cultural identity, being one born of colonialism and indigenous history. It isn’t a matter of Asian or Hispanic, those labels cannot describe the Filipino identity

[@blessiemasancay4818]

​@@ninarances9074 I think both and that's what makes us unique.

[@cylearnpvp9566]

As an Indonesian myself, i never really think about this before.. my goodness, a crisis to my identity as an SE Asian.. my brothers and sisters, no matter who's colonized us, no matter what they done to us, they changed our histories, languages, names, etc., remember that your neighboring countries will always consider you as the same roots as theirs. They love and respect you. Even though they didn't speak the same language as yours, they share the same culture as yours. Even though your religion isn't the same as theirs, they act and behave the same as you, they are the most hospitable person exists in the planet earth. Don't forget about our past, before the Europeans came, our ancestors already knows each other. If only they didn't fukd up on our lands, who knows? Maybe we live as a one country today?

[@hyldrklein451]

It baffles me how Disney still manages to fail so miserably in making an interesting fantasy movie accurately based on SEA culture. We literally have everything fantasy you could think about. They just had to dig deeper and talk to actual relating academics. You want dragons? Serpents? We have plenty of specific variants. Combat styles? Combat Weapons? We have many, just pick which country and era. We have so many interesting tribes and ethnic groups that still exist to this day that they could accurately draw inspiration from if they really want that tribe/outlandish aesthetic.

[@jamiedodger2361]

The most frustrating thing about all this is that once you actually explore the different cultures of SEA, there is so much to work with. You could create a wonderfully complex and varied world with a magnificent story. Just watching a little snippet of Pecak Silat, I can already imagine a magnificent fight sequence and I have a new craving for Indonesian martial arts films. Nothing hurts more than knowing how good something could have been if it had been made by people who actually cared about their audience.

[@thismissivemisfit]

Ooohhh, you're in for a treat! Silat has various forms and styles for different weapons too. Even the weapons of choice can vary between genders (the sarong and hairpins to name a few). Different regions also practice silat, including Malaysia, Southern Thailand and the Philippines.

[@Lundy.Fastnet.Irish_Sea]

You should watch The Raid if you want to see Indonesian martial arts. A pretty grisly film but the action is so good.

[@deBuggy]

It feels like the Filipinos in your server weren't consulted for the Food portion because I found a few oversights, but I will only name a couple: 56:24 - It is also Manggang Hilaw at Bagoong (Unripe Mango and Shrimp Paste) from the Philippines. (EDIT: A comment mentioned that it could be specifically Bagoong Alamang, which is more acccurate) 58:21 - You mention there's no such thing as jackfruit jerky in SEA, but there's Dried Jackfruit (Langka) in the Philippines. We got other dried fruits too, most popularly Dried Mango (which I think their jackfruit jerky looks like the most.) I will say, I have never heard anyone in my life call it jerky, LOL. We just call it dried fruit.

[@En-ig9fv]

Also from the Philippines, I'd like to add: 41:33 -rice is a big deal. The Hagdan Hagdang Palayan (Rice Terraces) in Banaue used to be a wonder of the world. The root crop as the main companion in meals is mostly seen in islands like Batanes where the typhoons hit frequently and would make rice planting a nightmare 56:24 - Could also be mangga't alamang with the red-brown coloring

[@deBuggy]

@@En-ig9fv You could be more accurate for the mangga part. I'm like the only one in my fam that doesn't eat this lol so I just vaguely know they ate mangga with bagoong, but bagoong alamang might be more accurate. I prefer manggang hinog LOL

[@junirenjana]

The presenter did mention that it could be a take on dried fruits, though yeah, they didn't specify Philippines as one of the countries where this is a thing.

[@lykacaibigan7977]

I think I wanna add 58:47 to the list, because the one on the left also looks similar to Suman. The way the banana leaf is wrapped and folded reminds me of it, and the fact that it looks thin.

[@alekibutt]

@SpacedPanini Genuinely curious, what was the demographic breakdown like on this server? Or at least for Filipinos? As great as these two videos were, I sometimes felt like there were areas where the Filipino references were very surface level and would have thought more could have been said about the Filipino cultural tie ins to certain topics. Definitely not disparaging the contribution anyone did, I just wondered what went into play there.

[@Krwzprtt]

Adding all that to Disney's track records with their "first gay characters", I think it's safe to say that whenever they make a big deal out of representation, it's often not followed through.

[@toraokami5178]

Does Disney actually have any gay characters? Or do they just say they do?

[@Krwzprtt]

@@toraokami5178 Well, as mentionned in the video, that one cop in Onwards explicitely has a wife...that's about it I think. Heard something about Cruella but I'm not watching that. (oh also on tv there's the owl house but i'm not giving them credit for that when they explicitely sabotaged it)

[@toraokami5178]

@@Krwzprtt oh! How did they sabotage the owl house?? I thought that was very openly LGBT representation?? I actually haven’t finished watching it… maybe something happens that I haven’t seen

[@Krwzprtt]

@@toraokami5178 Oh it IS explicit LGBT representation! However they fricking cancelled it, limiting its planned third season to 3 one-hour-specials (aka 6 normal episodes), despite the show having great ratings and critical acclaim. THe "official" reason for canceling is vague, something about target demographic and fitting the network's brand, but I don't think anybody's fooled by that.

[@F1areon]

@@Krwzprtt Yeah the official reason for TOH's cancellation is that it doesn't "fit the brand" bc it's a serialized show as opposed to just a wacky gag cartoon... but the fact that it just so happened to have LGBT rep in it made people suspicious.

[@Magicmanyoyo]

I'm kind of sad I missed the whole 9-month discussion, but here, commenting as someone from a SEA nation not present in this video: 1:04 that has a closer resemblance to a 'khene'. In my country we pronounce it as 'can', but this is a national instrument of Laos, which may be similar, to the sompoton, but not exactly the same. 2:02 I'm not saying this to deny the Sesanjen & Canang Sari traditions, but my culture, most commonly, on regular offerings offer only one lotus in addition to the incense. We could offer more, but it would probably be for more formal occasions, such as on holy days, or important life occasions, in which they will offer food/more flowers/household necessities. 16:04 Namaari's weapons are basically double swords used by ancient Thai warriors on the battlefield, and the pole-arm, a 'ngao', adapted from China. 46:39 Not necessarily. I know one country in SEA that started using spoons and forks as a result of adaptation and trade with the western world rather than from "colonization". Yes, they were visited by westerners. Colonized? No. 50:18 Kumandra soup is not based on Thailand's famous Tom Yum Kung. Tom Yum Kung does not use shrimp paste as an ingredient, but rather chili paste. And no normal Tom Yum Kung has bamboo shoots, nor does it have palm sugar in them. According to several Thai analyses, the ingredients mentioned in this dish, excluding bamboo shoots, is more closely related to a soup dish called "gaeng ran juan" 50:55 This dish would not remind me of the Tom Kha Gai, but rather green curry, because the colour of green curry will range from light green to yellowish-greenish brown like in the picture, whereas the soup of Tom Kha Gai is majorly almost completely white. And the yellow things would probably be young coconut shoots (ยอดมะพร้าวอ่อน) that is cut to be abnormally large. Between green curry and Tom Kha Gai, I personally would associate green curry with pork blood tofu. It would make sense because green curry has a much deeper flavor than Tom Kha Gai. Adding pork blood tofu to Tom Kha Gai would make the already light tasting dish lose its taste if eaten with rice. This could also be some other food that my brain could not think of right now, but it would definitely taste really good with some rice noodles. 51:38 The Thai variation of this dish actually sounds like the Vietnamese variation, which is called 'Khao Tom Kung' rather than 'Chok'. The way to tell the difference is how much of the rice has retained its shape after boiling. If the shape of rice is still in the form of rice grains, that would be 'Khao Tom' meaning boiled rice, and if you can barely tell it's rice anymore, it would be called 'Chok' (word derived from Cantonese). In other countries, these two might be the same thing, but there's a tad bit difference in Thai. 53:31 This dish is believed to have originated from the brahmins. Thailand also has a similar looking dish called 'Khanhom Tom' but because of the color choice, it looks more similar to the Indonesian and Malaysian variant. 54:25 I've actually never heard about the existence of this dish before a Thai drama brought it up. This dish came from trades with Portugal and China and adapted to match with ingredients readily available in Thailand. The inclusion of this dish, and the dish from 56:31 in the movie is because of that drama. 58:39 maaaaaybeeeeee the thing on the left is sticky rice in bamboo 1:01:18 yes, the ba mee yok (though its existence with that questionable sauce is questionable) the most common way I've seen people eating it is the dry way with sauce on top, normally with Chinese side dishes. As a frequent consumer of this ba mee yok, I feel like the consistency of the noodle is not meant to be eaten with soup because it is not as stringy in soup as other noodles are. The photo of the "Japanese jade noodle" at 1:01:34 is literally a picture of the ba mee yok found in Thailand (the plate is iconic to a restaurant chain in the country). 'ba mee yok' translated to English is literally jade noodle. Was interesting to see so many similarities between each SEA country. Thank you all for the awesome presentations! Looking forward to future projects.

[@RTAbram]

The one commenter who said Disney did the imagery okay but the dialogue was straight up American teen ... That made it very clear why so many South East Asians were not impressed with Raya. Why put in all that work researching, consulting, in the first place if you're only going to use the visual stuff. Why not just use Wikipedia? It seems to me that Disney should've marketed this as "fan fiction" based on Pan-Asian culture rather than spamming how they consulted or referenced "actual South-East Asian people, cultures and places". It's not like they cared for the source material much more than the average fanfic writer.

[@MelodyLovelace]

As a fanfic writer, I can confirm I do more research than Disney did for this movie 😂

[@vysharra]

@@MelodyLovelace same. I’m pretty sure I did more research on fire suppression in high rises constructed pre- and post- 9\11 (for a single scene in a single chapter) than Disney did for any of the major details in Raya. The internet is _right there_ ! I’m not going to say good research is easy, but it is a *hell* of a lot easier than it has ever been before. And I’m not a multi billion dollar corporation with the phone number to vetted experts and the ability to hire dedicated researchers.

[@cookiemocher388]

Raya and the last dragon's dialog was also cringy as fuck, it always feels like the character's are written like how a mom thinks them youth talk

[@Fisinocean]

@@vysharra actually can you elaborate on the whole fore supression thing? That seems like a cool topic that totally wont end up leading me into a rabbithole

[@vysharra]

@@Fisinocean Sure, I found out a couple of really neat details that I probably won’t have the chance to talk about again: 1. 9/11 actually changed very little about fire suppression in high rises. Because of the limitations of hoses and firefighters hauling themselves and hoses/equipment up smokey stairs, fire suppression above a certain floor (roughly 10ish floors) is about passive containment and safe evacuation, not actively putting the fire out. Automatically closing fire doors (those heavy metal ones that only swing open after you hit the bar-like opener often found opening into staircases) and concrete floors/walls are really perfect for stopping fires from spreading (so long as no one breaks the rules like propping those doors open) and things like fire sprinklers will do more damage to property overall. It’s all about getting people out safely, according to my (laymen) research. The recent “changes” that affected this subset of firefighting was less 9/11 and more a terrible disaster in California that killed firefighters by trapping them on a relatively low floor (hence that 8 floors cut off) and, weirdly, global warming. 2. Here is where I fell down the rabbit hole: I needed fire sprinklers to go off in a hire rise penthouse (personal residence). But then I learned, even if they did, realistically, there wouldn’t be _water_ in the system. Which was okay, I had heard about other stuff, until I actually read about the other substances and none of them would behave the way I needed. I needed something that would freeze, like water. Turns out, nowadays, it’s more effective to deprive a fire of oxygen instead of making things less flammable (with water or other substances I was expecting). I found out this changed because of a bunch of reasons, primarily these systems are expensive to install and maintain, so are only installed where needed and the typical stuff being protected like files or electronics would be equally destroyed by water or that soapy stuff I was expecting (the ‘soapy stuff’ is glycerine and water used in wild fires because it doesn’t hurt the environment). Stuff like records or electronics, which didn’t really make sense for my scene either, are protected by pressurized noble gases or oxygen-displacing gases to smother the fire. Sadly, oxygen is also important for people so these systems aren’t used in residential applications either, double fail for me. So my problem is I built my whole scene expecting water/water-ish sprinklers _at the climax_ so I am screwed. I’m writing a superhero thing and the hero has been de-powered while fighting their nemesis, they have history with the antagonist as a victim of bullying before they got superpowers and it’s been set up narratively that the hero will finally defeat the ice-villain-bully with their wits to complete their arc into healing and true self-confidence. Great, except if they are fighting the ice-villain in a modern high rise penthouse (I needed to know about 9/11 because the scene was set in the early 2000s and I thought it might be relevant), there is no chance of my triumphant moment where the villain is gloating and using the same bullying phrases right before our hero triggers the sprinklers and freezes the ice-villain using only intelligence and the villain’s own hubris (I know I could have just wrote it that way anyway but I was fixated and since I notice things like anachronistic zippers or crops being the wrong type for the area/season in other people’s writing, I felt I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t figure out a way to make it work realistically). 3. So here is where global warming comes in. There is this substance that puts out fires but doesn’t suffocate people, called Halon, that would have logically been used in a penthouse _if_ there was a full kitchen with gas appliances. Okay, maybe I can work with that. It’s a penthouse, rich people are weird enough to have a full kitchen built. BUT, I learn, it’s a _terrible_ green house gas and by the 2000s should only be used where absolutely necessary and if I insisted on these circumstances, water sprinklers might have actually been the system used and my hours of research have just come full circle for NOTHING. 4. By this time, I am hyper-focused. I am in The Zone TM, and worse, my beta reader asks oh-so-innocently “If [Hero] is ambushed by a group of people competent enough to [successfully complete many complicated steps to sneak up and de-power Hero] wouldn’t they KNOW about the sprinklers, and since water is [Villain]’s kryptonite, they wouldn’t risk it and avoid the kitchen or just… preemptively freeze the water before the fight?” Yes, yes they would because I just wrote that the *other* water source in the sink has been frozen. Damnit. And instead of fixing the scene by relocating it, I research *more*. 5. Less relevant to you question, I know, but I get down to the basics about why water actually stops fires and why the ice villain would scientifically react badly to water (this is a common trope I was using without question). Learning about how fire burns wet things, why water freezes and how human bodies react to cold suddenly pings a memory and EUREKA! I find my solution: there is a Halon-replacement that is safe to use with people but also carries a warning about the gas causing ice-burns/frost bite. I do MORE research and learn that it isn’t just cold from being compressed (like most of the systems I researched) but it also lowers the freezing point of water and air, which makes it extra cold! Yes!! My scene’s climax is now Hero running into the kitchen, wanting to recreate the first time Hero fought Ice-Villain when Hero escaped because IV was trapped in frozen water. But, IV is too clever for such an obvious ploy (IV is not clever, the government analysts who helped plan the mission are clever). Hero instead finds the whole kitchen suddenly iced over like a combination of _Disney’s Frozen_ and a mid-western basement after a leak in December. While the Ice-Villain is gloating over Hero’s defeat after years of being enemies, they see Hero looking up and seeing the fire sprinkler nozzle right above the Ice-Villain, and IV laughs. IV reminds Hero that “There’s no water in there, stupid. Damn, you really are that big of an idiot, aren’t you?” Which is a common, painful repetition of childhood bullying for our Hero. But Hero says “I know” (because her mentor is a poorly-disguised Batman-clone-character and Hero learned about fire suppression systems because they rescue people in a major city) before lunging for the knife block and throwing it at the sprinkler head and releasing the pressurized gas. This lowers the freezing point in an already cold room, and encasing the Ice Villain in frozen water and oxygen, and allowing the Hero to limp away and finally not feel stupid. It’s not very exciting, it’s hardly an important detail, but I finally broke away from the hyperfixation and could move on to the next section of my amateur online writing, lol. The research about fire suppression gases was fun, so was dusting off my high school chemistry lessons to try and understand the science. I really liked learning about the multi-faceted approach to keeping people safe in case of a fire in a tall building, it has made me very aware of evacuation routes, and I definitely loved the chance to talk too much about it just now. Thanks, I hope my rambling didn’t make this too excruciating to read. I hope you’re having a great day!

[@tinygaymonster6902]

The spirituality = fandom thing is a characterization very frequent in America when dealing with polytheistic settings/cultures/traditions/etc. and it sucks. (I'm saying this as an American who is in a weird love-hate relationship with fantasy as a genre.) This issue cropping up in Raya is a symptom of a larger pattern. Part of it may be because of the idea found in the Abrahamic religions of a jealous deity who demands worship. In a polytheistic system, they graft that idea of exclusive worship on to the polytheistic deities and assume all the deities of polytheistic systems are constantly fighting and vying for everyone's attention instead of having different spheres of influence. This leads, as a side effect, to henotheistic/monolatrous societies being WAY more common in fiction than they actually are historically. And then they mix that vying for worship and attention in with the assumption of "well, we all know this is actually fake nonsense, there's really a single all-powerful God" in the background, leading to the fandom characterization. (This also shows up a lot in stories where deities gain power through belief, but there is an exception carved out for the monotheistic conception of a single all-powerful God.) Since fandoms are all made up and people get insanely passionate about them and argue over which characters they like and dislike and ships and so on, the writers then try to slot the dynamic into what they're familiar with, even though this is completely wrong. This is a pretty massive bias that creeps into a LOT of Western stuff, though most obvious among US creators due to the ways Christianity is in the public square as it is.

[@omanoma5278]

In my opinion i found that the spirituality "represented" in Raya was comparable in western countries to saying "OMG Jesus I'm your greatest fan look i have the novelty christian necklace"

[@hedgehatchet3578]

It’s also probably because of the fact that the most famous polytheistic pantheon is the ancient Greek/Greco-Roman pantheon. Everyone’s been slapped at some point with the fact that these gods are actually assholes and not the power-washed bastardizations in Disney’s (oh hey) Hercules. So I believe that there may be some kind of internalized bias here going “Wow, these guys suck which means all pantheons with multiple gods must suck!” thus creating this vapid/shallow characterization of polytheistic worship.

[@wordart_guian]

i feel like american attitudes like that are not that rare even concerning abrahamic faiths (at least on social networks). Can't count the amount of times I've seen the words "jesus fandom"

[@mastermarkus5307]

@@hedgehatchet3578 As a kid who loved Greek mythology (still love mythology in general), I HATED Hercules, and a lot of people who liked it didn't think of "It's not remotely accurate to mythology" as a valid complaint, but it _is_ because the mythology is a lot more interesting than the Disney story! Disney's Hercules is just another bland "I'm a friendly young man and I want to be a hero to fulfill my destiny!" Of course you'd have to cut some things for time and cut down on the sexuality for a kid's movie, but Herakles in mythology is not such a generic character, being someone with strong emotion, who could be very caring, and loyal to his friends, but was also mercurial and prone to anger. I didn't really realize then that Disney didn't have much backbone and basically doesn't depict "grey" heroes in any of their movies.

[@vividao4123]

I think that the fandoms thing doesn't come from Abrahamic faiths but a series of cultural shifts that a long-traditional tenet of fundamentalist faiths was the start of. You can majorly blame the Enlightenment and then later the long and tiring of episode of Atheism where atheists believed all kinds of problematic things about faith and religion.

[@user-bj3nc4xi7i]

dude, i’ve seen a keris once or twice irl, and i dont even DARE to go near it, i don’t even dare to look at it for too long…. when i visited an ancient site in yogya, there was a room that had a keris hung on the wall, i wasn’t even allowed to ENTER the room because i was on my period. they said if i entered, an evil spirit would follow me back to jakarta and cause harm to me and my family. that’s just a small example of how SACRED and spiritual keris is, everybody in indo knows this, even if you’re not javanese or superstitious. literally disney could’ve asked literally any fucking indonesian and they would’ve told them this LMAOOOO

[@wickie-search]

What they say is true, because back then a lot of kings, maharajas and even sultans used to worship things from other side (aka things that we can't see but they see us) and often borrow powers from those things. Some warriors even asked help from these things to help them stronger in battle. And this can explain why most keris are kept hidden and away from many people. Even mere touch can be bad for us. In Malaysia, since the arrival of Islam, these practices have been forbidden since these practices go against Islam principles. But even until now, people still ask these things for greeds.

[@losj3020]

I want to add something about the keris bit: while the presenter is way more knowledgeable than I am, I think it's also important to mention that in some cases keris does get inherited by the owner's offspring, usually the first-born, in some families regardless of gender (so Raya might be somewhat correct). Although it's generally seen as a huge responsibility and depends on your family beliefs, most in the modern days would refuse to inherit it I actually think that if the narrative does intent for her to hold a keris (or a keris inspired weapon, since someone commented that it actually resembles the Mindanao Kris/Kalis and Disney just effed up that info I guess), they can construct a fairly decent theme of responsibility and legacy. Owning a keris, whether inherited or custom made, means you willingly shoulder a huge amount of burden, even if you don't believe in its spiritual aspects. I think in the hands of more competent writers, Raya's weapon of choice has a potential to enrich the story while still being respectful of the culture the item is coming from

[@pinkcupcake4717]

Disney went above and beyond in failing to represent anything SEA, and they went all the way to *aggressively cringe* and BORING in doing so.

[@Little1Cave]

I know right? Actual plot aside (because I’ve never seen a movie screw up its message this badly, let alone from Disney) I never felt engaged or intrigued about the visual design of the movie outside of “eh, that’s kinda cool” and then forgetting about it later. Contrast this with Encanto (with a VERY good plot) and the visual design felt fresh and exciting, something wondrous, and sure enough it seems like Disney put WAY more effort into researching for Encanto than they did for Raya because you can actually FEEL the passion in the details. Disney went on a tour with a professional representative instead of a scam artist, they visited Colombian homes to see and engage with the daily lives of real Colombians. Disney REALLY should’ve focused on just one SEA country and let that open the door for other possible SEA countries in the future. Passion is what Raya sadly lacked, and what little passion might have been there was likely overshadowed by corporate apathy.

[@pinkcupcake4717]

@@Little1Cave Even if every movie is ultimately in service of Le Capital, somebody, a lot of somebodies, LOVED Coco and Mexico. Somebody LOVED Colombia and Encanto. Even the people who weren't from those cultures put effort and care into telling those stories and making those places feel special. No one loved Raya. No one loved SE Asia. And I can't think of anything more heartbreaking and insulting than that.

[@Little1Cave]

@@pinkcupcake4717 I know right? I got more hype for SEA from a four-hour presentation on KZbin than I did for an animated film from a huge company with all of the resources in the world. Actors I didn’t know were SEA, great looking food, great looking concept art, the spiritual significance of the kris, it was all extremely enlightening. ❤️

[@chienrouge2142]

hello, just a little something i noticed: so in the philippines we like to make...dried anything 😂 so dried mangoes...dried jackfruit, dried durian. and when they are bitten, yes they do kinda feel like jerky but yknow we just dont call it jerky also! in the philippines too is Binignit which is gluttinous rice in coconut soup, and you add in bananas, gulaman ( kinda like boba but more colorful ) sometimes jackfruit ( i personally do not like but go off, filo-good ksks )

[@raepark1000]

Or Tambo Tambong

[@deBuggy]

Definitely noticed this too. I will say I never had dried fruit that was tough/hard to eat?? Maybe I'm spoiled and i always get the soft ones skskdjfhjdjd

[@Rakerong]

That sounds like something I'd enjoy. I like tough, chewy dried fruit snacks haha. Binignit sounds awesome though, I would try that out as a big fan of coconut and glutinous rice.

[@chienrouge2142]

@@Rakerong honestly a great summer snack 😋 or just a snack to munch on when youre on the road uwu

[@JingDalagan]

Binignit sounds like bilo bilo. Or is it?

[@tybronx2446]

"Why are you looking so deeply into a Children's movie" Bro I'm learning so much! This is information that I've never thought to look up before! I'm learning so much! Aren't you?

[@kunderemp]

A Jakarta born Javanese Indonesian here. As practitioner of Silat, I have to critic Serat. Serat, just because you are familiar with one type of Silat and you see IPSI silat, you are not representation of silat. Silat Betawi are not spiritual as Javanese silat. The spiritual in Silat Betawi was in Islamic teaching instead of the silat itself.. The spiritual aspect of silat in Minang is also different with spiritual of silat in Javanese silat. The Minang spiritual was more natural admiration instead of meditative one. Even the "art" itself was perceived differently between silat styles. And not all silat has low stances. Despite of those inaccuracies, Serat was correct, there was no a single movement of Raya reminding us of Silat. In fact a few of Naamari movement was more like Silat. When Namaari "slap" Raya's punch, it was similar to silat. Of course that slap handling was not exclusive to silat but can also be found in Thailand's Muay Chaiya. The scissor kick which was said from Vovinam in fact was also existed in Silat. Disney promo material should not mention Raya was based on Silat while there was no a single movement of her reminded us of Silat. Personally, I see Raya fighting style was more like Krabi Krabong (Thailand) and Bokator (Cambodia) instead. Regarding Keris, I agree with Serat, it was not Keris at all and it was not Kalis/Sundang either. The "ganja" (Phillipines: Gangya) part, the wider part of the blade was missing. The one weapon in the movie which was closer to Keris was actually the spear of Kingdom Fang, used by Namaari's people. However our spear did not have "ganja"/"gangya" as Fang's spear. Thus, Fan's spear was more like Chinese halberd (Ji) but the axe was in the shape of Keris' ganja instead. If they could add 'ganja' in fictional spear, why couldn't they put the ganja/gangya in Raya's sword ? By the lack of it, it made Raya's sword was neither Keris nor Sundang. You can have non-wavy or straight keris but you can't have non-ganja/gangya keris. Those "spirituality" aspect of Keris, as a Javanese descendant myself (and my father has Keris), I have to be skeptical that Keris was spiritual since the beginning. In fact, Javanese have been diving too much into spirituality that nowadays, only a very small number of silat school in Javanese who have specific Keris movement (one of them in Yogya). This is in contrast to Malaysia where their silat performance are still often show Keris in action. While no one hold Keris just like what Raya did, not all Javanese put Keris in his back as Serat believed. Pangeran Diponegoro (19th century) and Doctor Tjipto Mangunkusumo (early 20th century) were ones of Javanese who put Keris in the front. My point is, event among Javanese, there were historical nobles who didn't conform to the tradition, who didn't perceive the "spirituality" as mentioned by Serat here. Just like those SE Asian involved in Raya project could not represented the whole South East Asian, neither were SE Asians who throw criticism at Raya could represented SE Asian. I personally triggered by how Serat monolithically narrowing down the Keris culture and Silat. Yes, the same critics are also applied to you. Silat culture are diverse and so are Keris culture. Keris in Bali are different with Javanese and Bali is culturally closer to Majapahit than Javanese Mataram Islam. Phillipines and pre-Islamic Javanese Medang Kingdom have relationship. You couldn't just dismiss Phillipines and Bali when talking about Keris, and believed that Javanese Keris culture is the most authentic one. What Serat has shown in her presentation was the arrogance of Javanese, a common behavior which I found it disgusting even as a Javanese myself.

[@orangeapricot4630]

CMIIW but if I wasn't mistaken, the "Javanese politeness" of wearing keris in the back is mostly attributed to Keraton traditions, and is not as prevalent in non-Ningrat Javanese people and everyone else, and adherence to the rule isn't socially enforced. The belief that keris is worn in the back is permeated in Javanese tradition because that's how it's usually worn with beskap formalwear, which is mostly ceremonial. The presentation feels as if someone said the customs of the British Royalty applies to common English people, for example. This might come across as nitpicky, but Prince Diponegoro and Dr. Cipto are both Colonial-era figures, while the movie is supposedly based on pre-Colonial SEA, so they're probably not the best example of the lack of adherence to tradition. It helps that their likeness is well documented and easy to look up online, however. The belief that Javanese culture=Indonesian culture is an issue with modern day Indonesian language media, so it's disappointing to hear the same sentiment in such a large platform, intentional or otherwise.

[@kunderemp]

@@orangeapricot4630 Yes, the belief of Javanese culture = Indonesian culture is one of our problem. Both Pangeran Diponegoro and Doctor Tjipto were Ningrat (aristocrat). Pangeran Diponegoro had a chance became Sultan Yogyakarta twice but he refused the opportunity because he dreamed of unifying Java. Doctor Tjipto came from low Ningrat but he still knew the Javanese ethics and he had been show of disliking it several times. Both were from colonial times but the Javanese ethics we knew came from Late Mataram era with only a small trace of Late Majapahit. The example of how Late Mataram was disconnected from 8th century was by the fact Roro Jonggrang myth appeared. Late Mataram people did not recognize the large beautiful Durga statue inside Prambanan because they associated Durga with ugliness. Durga had evolved from savior in Early Mataram to cursed goddess in Late Majapahit to goddess of evil in Late Mataram. We can't be sure how Javanese ethics in precolonial era. It was possible that having Keris in the back was originally only applied in indoor situation such as in Pura (temple) or in Keraton (palace) while outdoor the keris was put in the front. It was also possible that "spiritual aspect" of Keris was developed later in the Late Majapahit era in the same time of "ruwatan" ritual developed. Prior to that, Keris culture perhaps more practical although some Keris were still honored as sacred. We could look into Bali as mirror of Late Majapahit culture. Some keris was considered as sacred but they also had normal keris for dance and even unsheathing the blade in the performance although the priest had to pray first for the safety. Thus, unsheathing keris is not as strict taboo as Serat thought and she can't dismiss that because it wasn't Javanese culture. The current Javanese culture was not an authentic pre-colonial Javanese culture either. The Javanese culture we know today had come through several trauma, from the fall of Majapahit, change of religion, colonialism, betrayal, partition, etc. We could see how Late Mataram king such as Amangkurat I treated females differently to Early Majapahit. We saw how Durga evolved from honored position in Bhairawa religion in early Majapahit to despised position as described in Serat Pustaka Raja Purwa in Late Mataram.

[@orangeapricot4630]

@@kunderemp ahhh, I see, I see. That makes a lot of sense since there isn't much written sources on pre-Colonial customs to go on from, and relying on solely oral tradition can bring out inaccuracies. The part about "indoors" and "outdoors" etiquette is very interesting because this is the first time I've heard of it, but it made perfect sense because portraits are usually painted indoors. Thank you for explaining 🙇 Overall, I'm disappointed that the presenter went through such details with the explanation of keris etiquette in Javanese settings, but not so much about its usage and significance within other ethnic groups within Indonesia, nevermind other countries who also treated the keris with reverence, as other Malaysian and Filipino commenters had pointed out. The presenter offering the Sundanese Kujang as a "non-spiritual alternative" is also disappointing because Kujangs are as spiritually and historically important to Sundanese people. Just because the Javanese does not hold the Kujang with the same level of respect, doesn't mean it's less important. Also, while I understand the presenter's choice to avoid discussing silat teachings rooted in Islamic spirituality like Betawi and Minang due to their Kejawen background, owing to Indonesian Muslim majority's contentious opinions of the Kejawen faith, I think it's still worth a mention, especially since one of the movie stars they give as an example, Iko Uwais, is himself Betawi, while the other two are Sundanese. Failing to mention their background feels like an erasure of their identity and background and indirectly implies that everyone living in Java believes in Javanese values.

[@nat_lysa320]

As a Malaysian, this video project has definitely clarified on why I actually feel disconnected when I watch the film. But also eye opening that I wasn't aware of the practices that were dismissed and used incorrectly, especially with the Keris. Which I never knew of what it actually means for others aside of my ethnicity / beliefs, especially on the similar cultures of multiple SEA countries but not addressing its origins and significance to certain ethnicities. Even as an animator myself, getting the cultures right is never an obstacle when producing an animated media. Why is it hard to depict something that exists? (I meant actions and practices that can be easily observed and mimic by animators, not things like realistic textures that takes a lot of time to produce) Creating a fictional world while being out of touch on reality / references is what I would describe the film. Of course addressing from Part 1, the whole production from when it was called 'Dragon Empire' was a mess, change of directors, writers, casts, which then influences the story and design of the project. The project wasn't taken seriously, just a side job to fill in the schedule and profit. Those led to loss of precious time and resources to really get into the nitty-gritty of what they proudly claimed the film should be. Heck, the drawings in the credits was a rushed last minute work from the artists as they tried to meet the deadline (Mentioned in the artbook). Hence, the sudden surge of cultural inserts like the food, sompoton and dance. Even the fillers on the Tail Lore and why they have Water Buffalos is because Tail was meant to be full of greenery and rice paddies cursed with drought when the dragons turned to stone, there is a drawing of the dragons blessed Tail with rain and rice crops grew. However, from what I learned.. SEA representation in media still has a long way to go. It's really up to us to be louder and demanding to be represented and to be respected as part of the creative team, not tokenism.

[@geekychannel1524]

I think you guys should make a video about potential SEA folk stories or historical figures that disney could adapt into a movies,I think it is a great way to introduce many SEA folk stories and history to many people.

[@bijtmntongaf]

indonesia alone is home to 1300~ ethnicities not even mentioning mainland SEA/indochina or the rest of maritime south east asia, and all of these groups are divided along broader austronesian, melanesian, viet, chinese, papuan, khmer, burmese, etc etc, categories, there is literally no feasible way where you could turn that in a representative story without generalizing, homogenizing and alienating sooo many cultures, which is harmful, especially in the case of indonesia where javanese culture has historically and is currently in the process of homogenizing the archipelago

[@laurenthomas7074]

@@bijtmntongaf What kind of SEA representation would you like to see from Western companies?

[@mayanur8399]

when it comes to malaysian folklore, theres already a local fantasy musical film called Magika...and its great^^ i dont know if they have an english sub versions tho...in recent years more local animations give homage to these stories,like upin ipin keris siamang tunggal.... in my opinion theres thousands of folk stories that are in itself unique and would work, like the tale of bawang putih bawang merah or historicly like mahsuri ... or sultan mahmud mangkat dijulang it would be great if a big animation studios actually decided to follow through,but as a SEA person, i dont have high hopes

[@ninarances9074]

@@mayanur8399 I've never heard of that musical film, so I searched it up on KZbin, and this is the first result: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aaqsg2ltqNCLbck. Is it that? Correct me if I'm wrong. It has English subs.

[@EmoDontMix]

The odd thing about Disney is that when I was younger, Disney actually had a whole division dedicated to southeast asia under the name Disney Channel SEA. And I recall as a little malaysian girl, watching a show talking about the many myths and traditional tales from various countries in SEA called "Legends of The Ring Of Fire" is super cool! Every episode is dedicated to a folktale story from each region. Like this one episode that focuses on a tale from Indonesia on "Why the Sun chases the Moon" kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoq3mIyemJyXZpY SEA folktales are batshit crazy and the potential is endless. They've done it before with references and they can do it. again... but we mustn't forget Disney being the cash cow it is, it doesn't matter that the movie is terrible as long as it turns a profit. P/S: The show "Legends of the ring of fire" is considered lost media now and we have Disney to blame by archiving and basically making it's accessibility impossible

[@MollyHJohns]

Everyone involved in this project and presentation has graduated and become PhDs I'm so glad and thankful. Malaysian here thanks Xiran for representing everyone to upload these two videos 😭

[@kingkonglee2065]

Honestly I didn’t even realize Sisu’s clothings were Hmong inspired. There’s so much more to our clothing and outwear, she could’ve worn a xauv(sau) a silver metal necklace to represent just a little bit of our culture. There’s also hundreds of patterns they could’ve even a simple google of “Hmong designs” could have given them an idea. Overall it was very much surface level detail, that didn’t really represent the culture and beauty of a bountiful series of cultures of SEA.

[@zz8az]

Showed my hmong wife sisu's outfit and she was like "this doesnt look hmong at all". Like, lots of hmong clothing is so distinctive and easy to spot. You're right, the simplest possible google search would be more accurate than what they went with.

[@coolcactus8861]

The Raya situation is extra confusing and dissappointing beacuse all these mistakes they made in the production of RATLD werent made at all in Coco. I am mexican, so of course when Coco got announced i got exited and nervous, yeah the whole trademark thing happened but i decided to look past of it and watch the movie. Coco is beautiful and even if some aspects are a bit stereotypical the rest if beautiful and truly captures mexican culture. And if we look at aspects or production of both movies we can see how coco succeded in parts where Raya failed: -Coco focused in one country, so the amount of work is minimized and less ambitious, making it less likely to make mistakes -The production team not only went to Mexico, they also talked to many families and spent time with them to absorb the culture and dynamics, to the point they had to rewrite and redesign a lot of stuff -The themes of the movie are actually respectful to mexican family values instead of generic american individualism. -So many small details added that truly reference our culture -Many jokes were made for mexicans, like the chorizo dick joke and the jokes about Frida Kahlo that, as an art nerd, wanst expecting at all -They actually brought mexican actors, artists and musicians to help out. My only gripe with the movie is that i wish they had show a bit more of northern mexican culture, since they mainly showed central and southern mexican stuff, but outside of that Coco was amazing and baffles me how they managed to do such a great job with Coco yet they fucked it up so hard with Raya and even Encanto in some aspects (i have a Colombian bf so he informed me in many aspects of his culture and his gripes with the movie). The shitty work in Raya is inexcusable when they have done amazing work in the past.

[@virginiamontaldo440]

Coco is Pixar and I agree, it was a great movie. Disney and Pixar are actually two separate studios.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

As already pointed out, Coco was produced by Pixar. The representation there would be better compared to Luca since they both were made by the same studio and used similar research practices. Raya was done by Disney Animation Studios and is better compared to Encanto or Moana, the former of which is often better accepted despite its flaws specifically for the reasons you stated Coco worked. Honestly, if it had been marketed as it actually is - a general fantasy epic with visual inspiration from SEA - the best comparisons would be Tangled and Frozen. Decent films, but the setting and culture have no impact on the characters and story.

[@-chenlanying5818]

@@BonaparteBardithion 39:58 i still don't understand why it's queerness denial ?

[@BonaparteBardithion]

@@-chenlanying5818 Not sure why you're asking me since my comment had little to do with the linguistic section, but... That's referring to their observations at 34:45 that the potential term of endearment is kept vague in both English and Vietnamese releases, the latter of which the phrase is most likely based in and should be able to clarify which "dep la" is actually being used. If an audience member is offended by the vague possiblity of a romantic relationship between two women the company can maintain deniability of deliberate queer representation by accurately saying that the phrase means nothing. Though it's hard to say if that was actually their intention or an unfortunate side effect of sloppy linguistic inclusion. It could very well be both depending on the dub, since I assume Vietnamese speaking actors would ask which one it is and be directed to keep the tone as ambiguous as possible.

[@riverrunsfree]

After two videos, I think we can conclude that this movie was NOT made for SEAn audience. It probably had a really SEAn-rooted story in the beginning, but as soon as they pitched it to their producers (who are probably mostly white), they didn't connect with it. Thus, they changed it to be more "relatable" to their white audiences. They didn't want to "alienate" the rest of the world (and loose money) that they alienated the very culture they *claim* to have "based" on. They forget that with proper writing and setup, people can relate to a *culture* they are unfamiliar with quite well. Just look at Encanto, Coco or even LOTR and Star Wars. It's not hard for people to empathize with another, just give them a chance. C'mon Disney, don't treat your (white) audience as _idiots_ (this is coming from a non-white/SEAn audience).

[@cmdrjanjalani]

During its release, most if not all SEA countries had their cinemas closed down due to the pandemic and Disney Plus was unavailable unless you used a VPN. They could have chosen to delay it like the MCU movies to allow their "target audience" a chance to see it but didn't.

[@kelly55]

As a white audience member I agree that I would've loved to see cultural authenticity. I'm so done with generic Western fantasy and had to turn to KZbin videos on all kinds of non-European mythology lol. Those are usually sort of educational though so I'm craving entertaining film adaptations. (Also, kids are going to be entertained regardless of how well they understand it. I remember loving LOTR as a kid for the main action and adventure and later for the world building and characters) Conclusion, for a capitalist company Disney sure missed out on a lot of profit by failing to get SEA representation on their team and everyone suffered for it 😅

[@wynonnamareeuy]

I can agree with that since the Philippines had to close cinemas (many of them in malls) for over a year during the pandemic.

[@benjaminacuna8013]

It’s also hard to believe that neither Nemari and Raaya wouldn’t speak in more formal tones given their status and upbringing

[@darthbee18]

Okay but a quick comment from someone who happens to be Sundanese ( *ahem* yours truly! 😤) - Kujang is mostly used for ceremonial purpose, and yeah it is rich in ornamentation due to that. While I am not aware of kujangs with spirits in them, with the symbolism contained in their design (one explanation on kujang design mentions that the particular shape symbolizes an angel with outstretched wings, so yeah, something with more of a ceremonial purpose rather than functional one). Honestly the best pick of weapons for Raya (from Indonesia) would be golok or celurit - they are purely functional, so she'd be free to do what she will with it.

[@shadowcheets]

I like how all Disney had to do was just ask people from SEA before they made the movie. They would gotten an organized, in-depth presentation to help them actually represent someone. Instead, here we are with an organized, in-depth presentation of how they screwed it all up.

[@blepblep7245]

well they did get an indonesian dishonest controversial problematic wannabe """movie director """ who made it into the industry thanks to her rich parents as their consultant..

[@JustWandering]

This is really interesting, because several of my friends of Southeast Asian descent generally loved this film, largely because they saw it as "Southeast Asia" in the same way that LOTR is "Europe" and enjoyed seeing a fun fantasy story based in that setting. Much like Shang-Chi, I feel like Raya and the Last Dragon reveals the problem of scarcity more than anything; no single property can be a load-bearing be-all end-all for representation of a certain culture in media.

[@ohnosmoarlulcatz]

I feel that part of the reason for this is that most western depictions of eastern culture ends up as stereotypical and anything not stereotypical somehow deserves praise. Combine that with the generally poor western adaptations of eastern movies that take away what little eastern culture is depicted and it gets even worse.

[@nadyanathania3847]

the problem with raya is that disney went beyond the wall to yell how its AUTHENTIC SEA CULTURE WATCH OUR MOVIE BUY OUR STUFF, if they didn't do that it wouldn't be a problem cause ahahahahaaaha fuck man

[@astridmustikasyamsuri6207]

@@alices8660 this is part 2, in part 1 it is explained on WHY inaccuracy is not even scratching the surface on WHY this movie irks a lot of SEA, look it up

[@umjackd]

It clearly just means that we need either more of these kinds of stories in media as recognised as American media is, or more mainstream international success from SE Asian media. Even in SE Asia, people consume local media but there's an often underlying assumption that foreign media is better, whether it be American, Korean or Japanese. That was the load is just better spread out, and expectations don't need to be so high.

[@olaitanmos1916]

@@alices8660 Yeah I wonder why Americans or British people don't complain as much about inaccuracies as minorities 🤪

[@ninavale.]

Hmm...this whole "she takes her father's Keris" seems like a carbon copy from Mulan where she takes her father's sword and armor to go to war, and omg learning what you've just told us shows how shallow this whole 'accurate rep' is in this. and how little understanding writers had of the topic and how they really DID shallowly copy other media and their "aesthetic".

[@P.Whitestrake]

It's ironic. The illustrator of the shadow puppet section in Raya is actually an Indonesian comic book artist who created an Indonesian fantasy comic series heavily inspired by traditional Indonesian culture called Garudayana, yet Disney only hired him as a "small-portion" illustrator. They should've hired him as one of the main designers because he actually understand the visualisation of a SEA culture (Indonesian) that was supposedly adapted in Raya.

[@IsSarahPi]

Anyone interested in the tattooing part: I recommend looking up a lady called Whang-od, a 104 year old who is the last Kalinga tattooist. Her designs are beautiful, the technique is fascinating and it's so cool she's tattooing at her age.

[@johannesseyfried7933]

Honestly, it's already pretty cool that she's living over 100.

[@himasekiwari155]

Ik her! She rezlly interesting, i hope the tatoo culture lives on

[@junirenjana]

Just a bit of correction for the numbers of ethnic groups shown in 1:09:04. The 1,340 figure often repeated for Indonesia is based on a preliminary report of the 2010 census. A further demographic study analyzing the raw data of the census in 2015 has reclassified the categories into around 600 ethnic groups, mostly by combining synonymous entries. Still a lot, but nowhere near 1,000. Also, around 55% of Indonesians are either ethnically Javanese or Sundanese, and there are only around 20 other ethnic groups with more than one million members. This means that while Indonesia has a lot of ethnic groups, the ethnic fractionalization index (the probability of two random Indonesians being from different ethnicity) is not as high as people might expect, though it's still #1 among SEA nations. Malaysia has a _lot_ more than 4 ethnic groups. On the eastern part of the country there are indigenous Borneans such as the Iban, Melanau, Bidayuh, Kadazan, Murut, Kenyah, etc., while in the Peninsula there are Orang Asli groups such as the Semai, Temuan, Seletar etc. Not to mention the descendants of groups whose homeland are traditionally located elsewhere in the Archipelago, such as the Javanese, Bugis, and Banjar. The source might be confusing racial categories with ethnic categories, but what even are these 4? Malays, Indian, Chinese and... "Others"?

[@emmaemmafield717]

They tried to appease everyone by including everyone but as a result they pissed everyone off as they say “A friend to all is a friend to none

[@wizardlychee9170]

The food section was definitely my favorite, not only did it make me hungry, but I got introduced to so many new foods I'd never heard of before. I don't think I ever had any SEA food before, but man do I want to try some now!

[@Ultraelectromagnetic]

I want to add some things about the "Keris" used by Raya - not to take away from the valid points of the video, but I think Raya's blade might be more akin to the Mindanao Kris/Kalis from the Philippines, which tend to be larger and usually purpose-built for combat. One of the possible reasons for why Philippine Kris are so different from the Keris of Indonesia/Malaysia/Brunei is because the Sultanates of Mindanao were engaged in regular warfare against the Spanish Empire and the keris dagger shape may have gradually developed into the sturdier one-handed swords you see in Mindanao today - to the point where I wouldn't to call it an equivalent to the Keris but a newer design based on it. Even when you look at the gunong daggers of Mindanao, which are supposedly the dagger forms of the Kris swords - they are shorter and thicker (more practical for combat), and some of these swords and daggers are built with very minimum "waves" on their blades. Disclaimer tho: I don't want to defend Raya; it's still a travesty imo, but I just wanted to provide an additional perspective on the weapons. Even if she's supposed to be using a Mindanao Kris sword, the guard and handle are still completely wrong, and the movie shows her training with dual rattan sticks as a kid, which is common for the Arnis/Kali/Eskrima martial arts in the Philippines but NOT an element of the Silat martial arts used in Mindanao, which is the tradition that covers the use of the Kris sword. So yeah, they got that wrong too. But to be fair, a lot of people even here in the Philippines tend to lump all "Filipino" martial arts as under the same umbrella when the reality is a lot more complex than that. That's a misconception that people are working to fix. ++ I loved the section on fashion! I don't know much about "traditional" Southeast Asian fashion outside the Philippines so it was super interesting, especially how you worked on trying to re-design each region's aesthetic.

[@vickylikesthis]

so interesting! thank you for sharing. this is the problem from putting south east asian cultures into a blender and regurgitate it out on this movie. It's impossible to tell which one the filmmakers Maybe the presenter assumed it to be Javanese Keris because Raya's fighting style was based to Indonesian Pencak Silat.

[@AkiraKuyosuke]

@@vickylikesthis the presenter focuses more on Indonesian keris because the official website claimed it to be based on indonesian keris. After reading ultra's comment, i guess they should've say it was inspired by the Philippines' keris then. Again, proof how shit disney research for Raya is.

[@vickylikesthis]

@@AkiraKuyosuke woah yeah, shitty research abounds then.

[@Fisinocean]

@@vickylikesthis Raya and the shitty, very bad, no good, research about southeast asian culture

[@MrDrewwills]

One of the most egregious problems with Rayas mistakes with martial arts is it muddles the story telling. The scissor kick looks cool, but what was the point. You're on the offensive, the enemies reeling, why are you throwing them away from you? Why go through all that trouble just to give them a chance to get back on their feet? If it was some kind of ring fight where the goal was to get your opponent out it would make sense, but I imagine pinning Raya to the ground then having said banter would have worked just as well, then you could show Raya getting out of the grapple to show off her skills as well. Maybe even show off how silat specifically can help get you out of grapples?

[@Little1Cave]

A fight scene in an action movie is like a song number in a musical, it should work as an integral tool for storytelling. The most iconic fight scenes, even those with less ambitious combat, are remembered because the stories they’re connected to would lose something significantly if that scene was removed, most notably character growth and dynamics.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

It at least makes sense on Raya's part for her to take longer to get up or fight less efficienctly. She's out there as a stall tactic. Namaari has no excuse aside from "looks kind cool" and posturing while they speak.

[@deborahballena1580]

I kinda sensed that raya would scam us in giving an authentic SEA representation when they marketed it as that because even I myself who is Filipino living n the Philippines doesn't know a lot of the culture of my friend who has a different tribe than me, how much more would disney know and represent cultures of 11 COUNTRIES. That would be a crazy undertaking 🤣🤣🤣

[@dologongpoloponobonotongpo235]

tribe? lumad ka teh?

[@cmschmidt]

I have learned more from these two presentations than I have ever dreamed of knowing. SEA cultures are so freaking awesome. The movie did not even begin to do justice to the incredible people of this region. Thank you for taking your valuable time to educate all of us who don't know as much as we'd like to, or should know. Do all of the people who contributed have a way we can make donations to show our appriciation?

[@buciallstar]

Man, Disney should have just picked 5 countries, designed each region around one country, and then just said "inspired by these SEA reagions". Also maybe go the reality route and not give everyone of the same region the same personality trait.

[@modmaker7617]

Yeah the word "inspired" be more accurate to what Disney is doing to culture than the word "authentic".

[@bruhhhh---]

It's odd. If they want to make it like how they made it (mixing everything together) then why did they even name each country? I think it would be better if they just took inspiration from older civilizations (Majapahit, Funan, Champa, etc..).

[@podoke]

the whole section about the keris was fascinating:0 i had no idea the dagger had such cultural significance... after seeing the movie i just assumed it was a generally se based sword design... man they really did the keris dirty ahh

[@Rakerong]

That part I liked a lot as well. I guess they figured it was such a cool design (kind of looks like Shan Yu's wavy blade from "Mulan" and they probably thought they hit gold when they realized such a weapon existed in SEA culture and they basically used it without researching the spiritual and cultural aspects of it.

[@nina531]

I'd just like to add something about the Bakunawa mask from he Philippines. Disclaimer, I'm not a professional historian, and pre-colonial Philippine mythology is not well-discussed even in our schools in our own country. I am not entirely sure what the masks are for, but the Bakunawa is a mythical creature, like a sea serpent-like dragon. Legend has it that there were once seven moons in the night sky and the Bakunawa would swallow one once every century. When only one moon was left, people grew worried as the night would be too dark. During eclipses, it was believed that it was the Bakunawa's shadow as it attempted to eat the last moon, so Filipinos would make loud noises in an attempt to scare away the Bakunawa and preserve the last moon. It served as an explanation for the patterns of celestial phenomena, such as eclipses, so the mask MAY have some cultural significance in that matter. Again, I'm not a historian so I can only assume based on what I know from my own culture. If there are other Filipino historians out there, feel free to add to this!

[@matehiqu9905]

you know, seeing more and more how many SEA people where involved in so much stuff and some even directly with Disney properties, almost makes me feel like Disney actively avoided contacting them

[@matehiqu9905]

on a separate note, "what's drippin' screaming slippers?" should be the official interpretation of that sentence

[@NWolfsson]

I am living for Xiran acting like an Eurovision anchorwoman x) It was also a nice time, learning all that the server has conglomerated to make South East Asia more seen. The movie may have failed to present your cultures, you all took that as a teaching opportunity :) (And, I mean, I understand the "we didn't want to show one culture as the baddies" argument, but dude you could have scrapped the cultural antagonization altogether to present five cultures distinctly...)

[@wewenang5167]

yeh i just hope that server does not become a toxic place where Malaysian and Indonesian bantering about their culture because that what happened in many group before xD.

[@pbjmochi8400]

Small correction: anchorPERSON, as Xiran is non-binary.

[@NWolfsson]

@@pbjmochi8400 True, I was more referring to the energy they put out there but I could have used neutral as well :)

[@jakmanxyom]

@@wewenang5167 The toxicity is more horrifying when you consider that this all started with Sukarno and his "Ganyang Malaysia" rhetoric - he wanted to attack the newly formed Malaysia who he believed was a British puppet state, never mind what he did annexing Papua - and the fact that generations after invoked said rhetoric to target their hate at Malaysia is absolutely nauseating, as someone of Malay and Minangkabau descent (re: both Indo & M'sia having those ethnicities)...

[@damianthorne2532]

It might be possible to not demonize one culture and still portray them as the villain. Avatar: The Last Airbender accomplished this fairly well, showing off aspects of Fire Nation culture that have little to do with their colonial aggression like those firebending performances, and showing that most Fire Nation citizens are just ordinary people whose government happens to suck. It also helps that the Fire Nation's villainy is rooted in the very real histories of colonial aggression instead of being "laughing madman with army of mooks attempts to TAKE OVER THE WORLD" and it's thus easier to fill in the gaps with a real and nuanced culture. Although the Fire Nation has the advantage of not mapping to any one culture -- like all the other nations in Avatar, it draws inspiration from multiple places and thus can't be seen as bashing Japan or China or any other one culture. It also has the advantage of being in a TV show and thus having more time to show off who the Fire Nation is when it's not trying to take over the other ones.

[@khanitchr]

With the amount of ethnic groups within each country of SEA. They could've just pick ONE country to use as reference. I'm from Thailand, in pre-colonial Siam there were more than 5 Kingdoms with their own culture that are completely different from others which still present today.

[@01kkp60]

As a person born in Thailand and having lived here my entire life, I’m just gonna say my thoughts 😁🇹🇭 1. Longans nothing to say other than that we say them as lon-gong (ลองกอง) 2. Tom yum kung or ต้มยำกุ้ง kung is actually pronounced with a g (gung) instead of kung 3. Tom-kah-gai or ต้มข่าไก่ Kah is Galangal which is probably what’s shown in the movie Gai is just chicken As for the cubes, I also think they’re pork blood. We call them leuad-hmu (เลือดหมู) The first word means blood and the second means pig 4. Congee. Over here we call it โจ้ก or Chok as was mentioned in the video. It could also be Khao-tom (ข้าวต้ม) which means boiled rice. They’re like the same thing but the rice in chok is more grounded. 5. Khao niaow ma-moung That’s all correct although sometimes we’ll eat them with those golden beans/ nuts (idk what they’re called in English💀) 6. Vietnamese Bánh Tét we have a similar dish called Khao tom mud(ข้าวต้มมัด) Which is essentially the same thing (m fav variation is the one with a banana center :0 That’s all I’ll be writing for now cus I have to go to bed soon- Tell me if you want more and I shall comply ^^

[@dazzleneal]

we also call Golok as "Gulok" in the Philippines. Nowadays, it's more used in farming (harvesting, opening, preparing fruit and vegetables) and animal (culling and for food) since there's little need for combat these days. But tbh, I never used it because it's so big and ALWAYS sharpened. It's terrifying to see lol

[@hypebun931]

Haven't finished the video yet, but since we're breaching the topic of keris and it's being sentient, just gotta put this one out. (For geographical purpose, I need to mention I'm from Malaysia. I'm not sure if anything say will be the same for others or if because this is basically based on my experiences and what I've told and taught since I was a child. Take what I said with a grain of salt, thanks.) Both of my grandfathers from both my mom and dad's side each owned a keris and both of them were sentient (or used to in my maternal grandfather's case). However, the thing about this being sentient is because they are hosting a jin (djinn or however you guys refer, pronounce or spell it as). It's pretty common for keris to host a jin, especially during centuries ago because its purpose is 1. To protect the user 2. To protect the family (it might depend on the "contract" the keris user has with the jin) 3. Practically to enhance the usage of keris (or so I heard). For both my grandfathers' side, their reason differ. On my dad's side, they used to be a part of nobility (it's more like the very bottom line of nobility, but nobility nonetheless, although I'm not entirely sure how it is right now since my paternal grandfather cut ties with his family long before my dad was born because of some _family drama_ ) so the keris more or less hosted the jin to protect the family. On my maternal grandfather's side, they used to be part of the palace guards (basically soldiers, although I'm not sure of what rank but pretty high up from what I've been told) so, basically the keris was used for all three reasons I stated before. However, as much as the reasons of having a sentient keris sounds appealing, it still has its consequences/side effects. 1. If the keris remain sentient, it has to be passed from one generation to another in verbal agreement or if the previous owner passed it down directly to their predecessor. 2. They have to adher to what the contract they have previously agreed. 3. If they don't want to have the keris remain sentient, find a shaman or religious figure (iman for Muslim, priest for Christian, etc) to break the jin's bond with both the keris and the bloodline of their previous owner. Because, if they don't do any of the three, the jin in the keris will basically becomes uncontrollable, hard to control and they will find on their own someone to latch on, which could be dangerous because it's kinda similar to possession but not really. It's kinda hard to explain in English but it's like, the jin will become a "penunggu", roughly translate as the "waiter" (Honestly, what it is in English. Please comment down if any of you know.) My maternal grandfather had long since break the bond between his family with the jin, some time when my mom was still a kid. We still has the keris (although I never seen it because my grandfather hid it somewhere because of reasons) but my mom did and she say that the keris is rusted now because the jin that hosted it had left the keris, leaving the keris as a simple object, and no longer sentient. However, the same can't be said on my paternal side of the family. A lot supernatural stuff happened in this side of the family, but we'll just stick to the keris part. So, long story short, my paternal grandfather had one and he didn't manage to break the bond before he unexpectedly died. Some time later, since my paternal grandfather died and there was no clear successor for the keris, the jin in the keris basically being given a free reign to choose anyone they wanna latch on so, they pick my cousin. I don't remember much about this (I was like 5 or 6 at that time) but I do remember she always get possessed or disturbed by the jin, especially during dusk because in Malaysia, we have this rule that dusk is the time where everything supernatural roam so, no one (especially children) are allowed to stay outside during that time and windows and doors are to remain shut at that time. It went like that for some time (my cousin being repeatedly get possessed and/or disturbed by the jin) before the shaman finally figured out to break the jin out of the keris. My cousin's situation basically got better afterward, thank God. As for the keris, not sure which of my uncle kept it but yeah, we still kept it. Basically that's all, I might forgot some details but, I guess I covered the basis.

[@victoriascott3137]

If Namaari really is calling Raya screaming slipper that would've been a funny part to show why she calls Raya that. Also sometimes I feel like they think kids are stupid or can't take a hint. Cause I remember watching a Disney Channel movie as a kid and this girl kept calling a man Baba. I instantly knew that ment father because he was older than her and he just acted like her dad plus they lived together. Not once did she ever call him dad in English she just said baba. I mean simple things like that. Any kid can understand the meaning of something with context clues (something kids are taught in school). Which kinda makes me question their decision to use Dep la without giving the non SEA audience a clue as to what that means. Like just imagining a scene where idk little Raya loses a fight with some slippers and after Nemaari calls her dep la. Also that would've actually answered the question of what version of dep la she's saying to the SEA because Disney neglected to clarify that in the movie or at least got the voice actor to say it right. Regardless I still like to think Namarii is calling Raya screaming slippers.

[@mayanur8399]

i can already imagine them playing baling selipar(throwing slippers)as kids and nemari accidentally hitting her with one^^

[@tana3875]

Although it was a joke, the screaming slippers interpretation doesn’t work at all since in Vietnamese, the d in slippers is more of y sound.

[@victoriascott3137]

@@tana3875 Noooooo Disney has failed me again 😔 😢

[@victoriascott3137]

@@mayanur8399 Is baling selipar a kids game?

[@jeonghansupremacist4354]

was the movie lemonade mouth?

[@LARKXHIN]

I love how these videos were 2 hours each… and then you’re hit with “and there’s another video because this would be way too long. “ at the end of this one. Really great work by everyone!

[@ShakaRDR]

"Food unites all people". Actually, Indonesian netizens "fought" about martabak manis, martabak asin, and terang bulan just a few weeks ago :))

[@laoyue5924]

41:35 idk if this is gonna come out as a nitpick but I can confidently say that Filipinos actually view rice as a staple even for lower income families and is cultivated pretty extensively allover the country 😅

[@wewenang5167]

yeh its staple all over south east asia, we all ask people if they eaten or not as have you eaten rice or not,

[@Morscrow]

i love the fact that even if noodles is carb we still going to add rice

[@kallistique]

@@Morscrow Lol I feel called out 😂 This is basically my midnight snack - noodles + rice 🍜🍚

[@JingDalagan]

@@Morscrow Carb on carb meal. Yay!

[@ginochristiano1397]

I remember my mom used to tell me that Kamote Sweet Potato was once considered the poor man's food. She was surprised when it became trendy for health reasons in Korea or somewhere

[@madmaster0015]

This is a lot of information to process. Its amazing that so much discussion was made from such a mediocre and otherwise forgettable movie.

[@Devilsblood]

Its informative though and really opens to light as to why I had lingering doubts about this film. You can add words like "diversity" and "representation" but none of those words matter if the movie itself sucks.

[@tweetie6477]

hahaha my thoughts exactly

[@ArnLPs]

Interesting how two videos (together double the length of the movie) are more fun to watch (and probably culturally important) than the actual movie.

[@expensivepink7]

i've learned so much

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

And seeing all the comments adding points is another highlight.

[@YourMom-jd6jp]

Can we appreciate how they took the time to add subtitles to both videos, even though they're over an hour long! That's amazing! 👏

[@egg_bun_]

Thank you to the discord group member who brought up that the things she's saying can't simply be googled! I'm Hmong and I've had white people try to catch me on what I'm saying about my own culture, or try to inform me about my own culture by googling. No. That won't work, and it's incredibly rude. A lot of information on my culture just simply isn't on the internet, and just because someone wrote something on a forum doesn't count.

[@helenadeerest2000]

The dep la part had me HOWLING, thank you so much every one for all your hard work! This video and the last are incredibly full of information. I'm personally a Disney hater and haven't watched the movie (I dont think I ever will) but if it took this mess of a movie to be made for us to get these two vids I cant help but feel a little grateful to it lol :').

[@brkh96]

@E . A Disney is exploitative

[@Soniman001]

@E . A because being quirky and different us charming

[@mariaduszak9064]

As a token white person who backpacked trough 7 SEA countries I could probably insert more SEA items,art,practices than what they did. Hell, I probably have more SEA items in my home than what were in the movie. I cant believe they really travelled trough 5 SEA countries and still managed to attempt to monolithize their very diverse cultures...They treated sacred things as trinkets, despite having budget to hire best scholars and consultants. I commited plenty of cultural transgressions while there, but my hosts and strangers were open and willing to educate me and I will never forget the kindness of the people. Also, SEA martial arts are amazing, very distinct, very effective (and have been cannibalised in parts by many a military in the world), despite being practiced under colonial occupation in secrecy,often using agricultural or diy tools as occupants rid people of weapons. It blows how little effort they spent and I understand every bit of dissapointment. South East Asia has so,so much cultural richness to offer and the white team still thought they had to invent&""improve"" something??

[@catsthemovie4692]

Disney has a formula....and is using other cultures to evoke a feeling that something's "different" when it really isn't..

[@Shythalia]

Kirby Araullo is another KZbin content creator I recommend when talking about SEA culture. He's a historian and even made a few videos about Raya. He also talked about powerful princesses & queens in Filipino history.

[@junirenjana]

Re: food, it surprised me that the movie doesn't feature the widely practiced betel chewing tradition. Well, I understand that it's probably more due to it being essentially drug use, but it held (and still holds) a lot of cultural significance to many people in SEA. In Western Indonesia where I live, consumption of cafffeine in form of tea and coffee has largely replaced the tradition, but it's still widely practiced in the eastern part of the country. It's common to offer your guests to chew betel before you start a convo. Relevant to the discussion regarding the royalty: SEA royals would often have decorated containers to store ingredients needed to betel chew. When the royals are on duty, they are often followed by officials specifically designated for the task of carrying the containers everywhere they go. Omitting betel chewing tradition or even just mere hints of it from a SEA-themed movie is akin to removing any mention of tea from an East Asian-themed movie, IMO.

[@thismissivemisfit]

Agreed! This is probably the biggest overlapping cultural aspect that SEA countries share. Betel leaf and nut chewing has significant meaning and deep philosophies, practiced by every layer of society.

[@junirenjana]

​@@thismissivemisfit My grandma still chew it regularly, but even among Western Indonesians who don't do it nowadays, tepak/puan sirih are still widely used in traditional ceremonies and performing arts if only for its symbolism.

[@ycantiusegeorgiantextforhandle]

Yeah, and while it is drug use, so is alcohol consumption. We don't see the complete erasure of alcohol in Western children's media, therefore betel nuts should've been present, even if not highlighted.

[@junirenjana]

@@ycantiusegeorgiantextforhandle exactly!